


Empty Skies

by Ken_Bear



Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5804977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ken_Bear/pseuds/Ken_Bear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jaehwan was with Hongbin, he forgot what it felt like to be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Skies

Maybe it was the way everybody first looked at him when he entered the intervention room that made him hate everybody instantly. Or maybe it was the way they wouldn't stop staring once he sat down. The first thing he had ever said to those people all looking at him two months ago was out of complete annoyance. "What?"

Jaehwan finds himself saying it now as his pencil rolls away from him, stopping at Baekhyun's foot. In Jaehwan's opinion Baekhyun is the most annoying person in the building and he honestly doesn't want to stand up to get his pencil from him. But Jaehwan rolls his eyes as he walks over to Baekhyun and snatches the pencil out of his hand. Jaehwan was tempted to whisper to Baekhyun that he hates him but everyone would hear it so Jaehwan thinks better of it, returning to his seat.

When the intervention continues, Jaehwan doesn't even know why it stopped because of his pencil dropping, the instructor asks Hakyeon to stand up. Jaehwan usually listens to Hakyeon when he speaks but today he writes in the stupid notebook the instructor gave him, saying that Jaehwan should write down what he wants. But what Jaehwan doesn't get is that he isn't allowed to look at what he wrote previously, isn't allowed to turn back any pages. The reason? Jaehwan doesn't know that. It must not be a big deal though because Jaehwan can't even remember what he wrote about yesterday.

Jaehwan finishes what he wrote for today right when the intervention is over and Jaehwan stuffs his pencil in his book bag as everybody leaves. He gives the instructor the notebook and as Jaehwan walks back over to his seat he wonders why he's the only one who has to write.

Baekhyun was still in the room and watching Jaehwan as he bent down to pick up his bookbag, swinging it onto his shoulder. Jaehwan didn't know that Baekhyun was watching him, didn't know that Baekhyun saw the scars on his wrists when his sweatshirt sleeves shifted up his arms. "What do you want?" Jaehwan says when he notices Baekhyun still standing in the room, even the instructor had already left. Jaehwan leaves the room with Baekhyun right at his side and Jaehwan doesn't know what would happen to Baekhyun if he didn't leave right at that moment.

"So you cut yourself?" Baekhyun blurts out and Jaehwan stops walking, Baekhyun still at his side.

"How about you shut up?" Jaehwan sneers as he starts walking again.

"When did you start? Are you going to kill yourself soon?"

Jaehwan clenches his fist and he has to tell himself to not hurt Baekhyun in everyway he could right then and there. He stops walking halfway up the stairs and he looks down so that Baekhyun doesn't see his eyes watering, so that Baekhyun doesn't have something to continue on about. Why was Baekhyun acting like this all of a sudden anyways?

"I hope you cut too deep the next time you do it so that you realize how stupid you really are." Baekhyun says and Jaehwan really has had enough already.

"Stop." Jaehwan says and it doesn't come out weak although he's still looking down. 

"And why should I?" Jaehwan can see out of the corner of his eye that Baekhyun is trying to look at Jaehwan's face.

Jaehwan hears someone else's footsteps as Baekhyun gets closer and before Jaehwan can say anything esle to him, Baekhyun is pulled away.

"If he asked you to stop then stop." Jaehwan looks up and he sees a boy with black hair, most likely the person that pulled Baekhyun away from him.

"Just trying to put some sense into him." Baekhyun says and Jaehwan scoffs as he watches Baekhyun walk away. Jaehwan realizes that his cheek is wet when the boy that helped him turns around but he doesn't even try to wipe it away because more will tears will fall.

"Hey, don't listen to him." The boy says and for some reason it makes Jaehwan mad.

"And why would I listen to you?" Jaehwan whispers because he knew his voice would crack if he used it and as he continues to walk up the stairs, more tears fall like he knew they would. *Maybe I should just kill myself… I'd be doing everyone a favor, wouldn't I?

When Jaehwan finds his mother in the car waiting outside for him Jaehwan only cries harder. He doesn't want to be around her right now. So he runs right when he opens the doors and he doesn't look back, doesn't listen to her screams of his name.

 

 

 

Jaehwan bites his lip as he lays down in his bed, pressing the back of his head harder into the pillow. He takes in a shaky breath and puts a hand over his mouth to help quiet his cries but it's no use. He doesn't even care that he has puffy eyes every morning, doesn't care that he only gets 3 hours of sleep every night, if he's lucky. He doesn't care if his parents hear him crying.

Jaehwan sits up in the dark room and presses the sleeve of his shirt against his eye, soaking up some of the tears that fell down his cheeks. He feels the slight prick of pain when his cheek bone presses into the scars on his wrist but it doesn't phase him in the least. Jaehwan tried and tried to go to sleep but with no use, like it always was.

Jaehwan lays back down and he never really knew if his eyes were open or closed, the darkness he lost himself in all the same.

 

 

 

Jaehwan could feel the stares on him as he wrote and he bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. *Dont cry, don't cry, don't cry…

When Jaehwan looks up he sees Baekhyun smirking at him and Baekhyun is holding his wrist. Jaehwan wonders why it had to be him, out of so many people, to find out that he self-harmed. Why'd it matter to Baekhyun so much anyways? Why'd Baekhyun ask if he was going to kill himself soon? Jaehwan stares at Baekhyun for a few seconds before Baekhyun looks in his direction, in which Jaehwan looks back down at his notebook.

The weight of the eyes looking at him have Jaehwan hanging his head low as he continues to write and he wants to know who else is looking at him besides Baekhyun but he doesn't want to lift his head up to look. Maybe it was just Baekhyun. When the pressure of being watched gets to be too much and Jaehwan feels like he's going to freak out Jaehwan closes the notebook. He drops his pencil as he stands up with his bookbag but he could care less about it as he quickly gives the instructor his notebook, exiting the intervention even though there was 20 minutes left to the session. 

Jaehwan skips up the steps, two at a time, until he reaches the top and he walks quickly to the stairs that lead up instead of down. He wasn't stupid enough to walk outside to his mother who would make him walk back into the intervention so he goes somewhere he knows he can get some peace. The roof.

His footsteps against the metal steps echo off the walls and when he reaches the door that leads onto the roof he scoots a brick in the middle so that the door stays open. Jaehwan sighs from the cold hair hitting his hot skin and he walks over to the edge, putting his bookbag on the ground. He takes a peek over the edge of the roof and he feels his stomach drop. *It'd be easy, just a single step over the edge and a long fall before I do everyone a favor…

Jaehwan steps onto the edge of the roof with shaky legs and he knows that he won't do it. *It'd be my fourth attempt. His eyes water as he looks down again and he lets the tears fall, no one would see him cry since he was alone. He takes deep breaths as he walks along the edge and he feels his heart beat slow down. He closes his eyes as he walks and he's thankful the edge of the roof is thick.

Jaehwan jumps when he hears the door to the roof open but when he opens his eyes, he sees the person that helped him out with Baekhyun the day before. He quickly wipes his tears away but his eyes are still red and puffy, still moist.

He watches as the black haired boy's eyes widen when he sees where Jaehwan is standing and Jaehwan scoffs on the inside. Of course he'd think he's trying to kill himself.

"What are you doing?" The boy asks and Jaehwan rolls his eyes. 

"Standing." Jaehwan says and he looks down again. "On the edge of the roof."

"You're not trying to… you know…" The boy cuts himself off and Jaehwan really doesn't think he'd care if he jumped off or not.

"Why? Are you scared that's why I'm standing on the edge?" Jaehwan asks and the boy walks closer. Jaehwan leans his upper half over the edge. "Am I scaring you now?"

"Yes, stop." The boy says and he continues to come closer.

"How about now?" Still leaning over, Jaehwan stands on one foot and he chuckles at the boy's face. "I'll jump if you come any closer." Jaehwan warns as he stops playing around and he stands back up, becoming serious and the boy stops moving.

"No you won't."

"Yes I will. You don't know me." Jaehwan says and he wonders how annoying this boy could get.

"Is it because of that guy the day before?" The boy asks and he takes a big step forward, Jaehwan inching closer to the edge.

Jaehwan doesn't answer him, won't answer him, and the boy is at least two feet away from him. Hopefully this boy could catch, since he seems so scared.

Jaehwan was only standing on one foot and when he looses his balance just a little bit, the boy grabs onto Jaehwan's arm and pulls him over to where he stood. "Why'd you do that!" Jaehwan screams as he pulls his arm away from the boy. "I could've killed myself and done everyone a favor!"

The boy shakes his head. "Because you wanted me to."

"No, I actually didn't." Jaehwan sneers and he climbs back onto the edge but sits down this time. If Baekhyun was up here, he would've made it easier for Jaehwan and pushed him off.

"You know, there are people that care about you."

"Yeah, like who?"

"Like me." The boy says as he sits down next to Jaehwan. Jaehwan looks at him and he furrows his eyebrows in anger and confusion. "But you don't even know me." Jaehwan says.

"That doesn't matter. I could get to know you, if you give me a chance." Wind begins to blow and it ruffles their hair which only makes Jaehwan a bit angrier at everything.

"I'm not giving you a chance." Jaehwan says and he doesn't look at the boy but looks down instead. He could slide off right now and end his suffering if he wanted but the boy was right. He wouldn't do it, not yet. Not while he was watching him.

"Why won't you? I could help you."

"Because I don't want you to help me."

Jaehwan doesn't look up from the ground and he sees the boy shiver out of the corner if his eye. "How can you just keep looking down?"

"It's not scary." Jaehwan says and his voice cracks, he knew it would. He watches as a tear land on his jeans and he hates himself for crying in front of somebody. He sniffles and rubs his eyes before he looks back up but he wont look at the boy. 

"My name is Hongbin."

Jaehwan doesn't know for sure if he wants him to know his name so he doesn't tell him, maybe he would next time.

 

 

 

Jaehwan had run out of pages so the instructor said he didn't have to write for a few days. He looks down at the floor, maybe at his shoe, not paying attention. He wonders if he would even get a chance to speak today. *Would I even want to? No.

Jaehwan doesn't hear when his name is called the first, second, or third time but when he is asked if he wants to share what was going through his mind, he listens. He doesn't really know what he was thinking about the whole hour, doesn't remember. His hands begin shaking when he reaches down for his bookbag.

"I'm... sorry." Jaehwan says as he stands up to leave but when the instructor asks, tells, him to stay Jaehwan raises his voice saying that he can't stand being in this room anymore. He slams the door shut as he leaves and he still hears the ringing it caused as he skips up the steps. Once he gets to the top he heads for the door leading the the roof. 

He was nearly out of breath when he finished running up another stair case but Jaehwan likes the feeling of struggling for breath.

Jaehwan smiles to himself when the cold air hits his skin. He walks around slowly for a while, catching his breath. The cold air gives him chills. Jaehwan rubs his neck as he sits down on the edge of the roof. "I don't mean anything." He says to himself, repeating it over and over. 

The clouds were gray just like they always were and the thunder rumbled in the distance. There was barely any sun out and he could tell that it was goig to be a bad storm.

Not paying attention to anything except his thoughts, Jaehwan jumps when the door opens and slams against the brick kepping it from closing. He sighs as the footsteps come closer and the person sits down next to him. Jaehwan doesn't look at the person.

"I knew you'd be up here. I heard you yell before you left your intervention, everybody heard it." 

"Oh..." Jaehwan says as he looks at him. *Wasn't his name Hongbin? Or something like that?

"Is that a cut on your neck?" Hongbin asks.

"No." *Yes.

"Did you try to kill yourself?" 

"I said no!" Jaehwan says, getting annoyed, as he stands up and grabs his bookbag.

He begins to walk away but Hongbin calls for him so he stops walking. "I can help you!" Hongbin offers.

"I don't want your help!" Jaehwan yells and then he proceeds to walk away, eventually walking himself home.

 

 

 

Yelling, another scar, and more tears has Jaehwan wondering how much longer he'll last before he finally gives up as he sits at his desk in a classroom, waiting for the teacher to tell him that he could leave because his mother was there to take him to the interventions. He tries to not hold his wrist in the car because his mother will ask what's wrong and Jaehwan has to bite his tongue when his mother comes to a harsh stop because his wrist pressed into his thigh. He's used to the pain, really, but he just wasn't expecting it.

Jaehwan didn't mean to slam the car door when he leaves, or maybe he did, and as he walks down the stairs to the hallway where all of the interventions are held after he got in the building, he notices it's really quiet. He was probably late and Jaehwan sighs in relief as he continues walking down the stairs. He doesn't make his footsteps noticeable and he sits outside of the intervention room instead of actually joining in late. He was scrolling through his phone when he looks up and sees that boy, and for a mere second he feels bad that he forgot the boy's name.

Jaehwan notices that the boy jumps a little bit from seeing him but he doesn't say anything about it.

"Why are you ju-"

"Sh, shut up!" Jaehwan snaps because the boy was talking too loud, loud enough for both of their instructors to hear.

"Why are you just sitting there?" The boy asks in a quieter voice, glaring at Jaehwan.

"Because I came late and I hate everybody in there, so why join?" Jaehwan mutters as he looks back down at his phone. 

"Do you not like your intervention group?" 

"Hate it." 

The next time Jaehwan looks up the boy is sitting in front of him and Jaehwan wonders how he didn't hear his footsteps. "What are you doing out here anyways?" Jaehwan asks as he turns off his phone and shoves it into the pocket on his hoodie.

"I had to take a minute..."

"For what?"

"I felt like I was going to freak out and just, I don't know, scream at somebody." 

Jaehwan nods his head, he's been there multiple times. More like everyday actually. "What's your name again?" He asks.

"Hongbin."

"I'm Jaehwan."

And the whole time Hongbin was in the hallway with Jaehwan they whispered so that no one could hear them.

 

 

 

It was his hair. Hongbin's hair was what stood out the most to Jaehwan because he hasn't seen Hongbin smile, or heard the sound of his laughter, and Jaehwan was sure Hongbin would never see his own smile. Jaehwan never found the corners of his mouth lifting up anymore. Maybe it was a good thing, or bad. Jaehwan doesn't know.

When Jaehwan looks down there is a notebook in his lap and a pencil in his hand. He notices a little cloud in one of the crinkled corners of the page and he adds little drops of rain and a lightning bolt. But he ends up crossing it out because it's too small and makes another one somewhere else on the page. The new cloud comes out ugly and Jaehwan *has to make every detail about this picture perfect. It takes him forever, but he finally gets a cloud with rain and his mother looking over his shoulder.

"What?" Jaehwan asks but he doesn't know if his mother heard him or not because she doesn't reply back to him for a few minutes.

"What's on the next page?" His mother asks and when Jaehwan turns the page he sees writing. He doesn't remember writing anything, except at the interventions.

"Nothing." Jaehwan says and his mother goes to sit down somewhere behind him.

"Draw something else, don't keep drawing the same things Jaehwan."

"Why? Am I hurting you?" Jaehwan asks as he rolls his eyes. His mother always had something to say about what he did.

"Doesn't it get boring, drawing the same things over and over again?"

Jaehwan stands up and turns to his mother. "Oh, I'm sorry for drawing the same thing since it obviously seems to be bothering you." Jaehwan feels like throwing the notebook, feels like ripping it up but he doesn't and just tries to calmly walk back upstairs into his room.

Jaehwan throws the notebook onto his bed and walks over to his desk to put his pencil on it's surface. He looks at the notebook laying on his blankets and he furrows his eyebrows as he walks over to his bed and picks it up. "What do I even write about?" Jaehwan whispers to himself.

The first page is full of writing, like the second, third, fourth, fifth and so on are. He doesn't remember writing any of this and the only page that isn't filled with words is the one with his drawings. But it's his hand writing so he had to have wrote it. But when? Jaehwan doesn't even want to read what he wrote about so he closes the notebook and puts it on the floor. 

As Jaehwan sits on his bed he wonders when the instructor will let him look at what he wrote. Maybe tomorrow, but Jaehwan doesn't know.

 

 

 

The instructor stood in front of Jaehwan with the notebook he wrote in and Jaehwan now understands why he was called back to stay in the intervention room. "Do you know what you wrote about everyday?" He hears the instructor ask and to be honest, Jaehwan never did remember what he wrote about. The slight shake of his head has the instructor handing Jaehwan the notebook. "Look through it."

Jaehwan was hesitant when the notebook was in his hands once again, only looked at the front, and Jaehwan furrowed his eyebrows. Why did it matter so much, what he wrote? Why? He flips the front cover so that he can see his familiar writing and the first thing he sees is the date written at the top, June 27th. Jaehwan remembers the confusion he felt on that first day when he was told to write and the way he felt when he looked around and saw that no one else had to write like him.

He looks at the instructor and then back at the notebook. Jaehwan felt tears well in his eyes at the first sentence. *I hate myself. Jaehwan doesn't want to continue reading what the page says so he reads the first sentence on the next couple of pages, the first sentences all the same. He stops on August 17th and decides to read what he wrote because it looks like he's written the same thing up until now. 

*I hate myself. I hate this. I hate the instructor. Baekhyun's kind of annoying. Oh, and I hate Kyungri too. I like Hakyeon though. This is boring and stupid. I'm a failure. I get told that a lot and I don't even know why. I haven't done anything yet, or is that the reason why I get told I'm a failure? I really don't understand. This intervention is pointless, it does nothing to help me. I wish I wasn't here. I wish I didn't have to write. I wish I could scream right now. I want to scream. I want to scream at everyone I hate, at everyone I love, at everybody who has ever meant something to me. I want to scream at my parents who don't care. I want to scream at the little things and the big things. I want to scream at the next person who touches me, the next person that bumps into me. I want to break something. Something sharp so that it will hurt me, so that it will relieve all of this anger I have. I need somebody to tell me that it will be okay, that this is going to end, that nothing lasts forever. I need somebody that cares. I need more attention. I want to die. I want to kill myself. What's the point in living if no one cares if I'm alive and breathing fine? No one will stop me. Nothing will stop me. I want want want, need need need, but can't have. I wish but they never come true. I scream but nobody hears. I promise but they always get broken. I can't live anymore… I won't live. I'm sorry for being such a huge failure…

When Jaehwan blinks he sees that the middle of the page is soaked with tears and he thinks, *maybe this is why I'm called a failure, because I can't do anything right, because I'm nothing but an idiot meant to die young.

"The only pages that were different was the week of August 23rd to the 29th." 

"Why…. why didn't you stop me? Why didn't you say something to help me!" Jaehwan raises his voice and more tears fall and he was still looking at the page now damaged with his tears.

"Because I wanted to see if you would help yourself, Jaehwan."

"Nothing helps me if you dont say something about it! Especially something like this, where I write the same things over and over again! I don't… even remember writing any of this."

When the instructor doesn't reply to him and Jaehwan gets tired of reading the same things, he rips the page out. And the next, and the next, until the instructor grabs his arm and the notebook is held tightly in Jaehwan's hand. Jaehwan pulls his arm out of the instructor's grasp and steps on the torn pages as he picks up his book bag, running up the stairs. The instructor's calls of his name are useless.

Jaehwan held the sleeve of his shirt against his wet cheek, soaking up some of the tears and he didn't wince when his cheek bone pressed into the scars this time. When he opens the door he feels it hit somebody and he doesn't have time to say sorry because he wants, has to get away from that place. 

After a while he slows down and is walking when he finds himself in the woods. Jaehwan hears the snapping of a stick from someone stepping on it and he sniffles as he turns around, ready to scream at whoever it was. But he doesn't expect to see Hongbin. "Why'd you follow me?" Jaehwan asks harshly and his voice doesn't crack.

"You were crying and I felt bad. You… hit me with a door too." Hongbin says and Jaehwan notices a little lift in the corners of Hongbin's lips.

"Sorry about that." Jaehwan says and he wipes off his cheeks and continues walking.

Jaehwan stops walking when they come to a tree and he sets his bookbag on the ground along with the notebook, sitting next to it with his back against the tree. Hongbin was still standing in front of him and Jaehwan doesn't stop the tears that continue to fall.

"What's wrong?" Hongbin asks as he sits down next to Jaehwan.

"It's… it's nothing." Jaehwan says.

"It's obviously something if it is making you cry. You can tell me, you know? I'm here to help you not cause you any more pain." 

Jaehwan sniffles as he reaches for the notebook and throws it in Hongbin's lap. Hongbin looks through the notebook but Jaehwan takes it away when Hongbin starts reading one of the pages because he doesn't want Hongbin to know why he thinks everybody calls him a failure. The notebook is in Jaehwan's lap and Hongbin doesn't try to read it because he knows that Jaehwan doesn't want him to. "I wrote the same exact things everyday at my intervention group and the instructor never said anything about it because he thought I would help myself…"

"What's the problem with writing the same thing?" Hongbin asks.

Jaehwan looks at Hongbin for a second before he replies and he doesn't really know were to look when he turns his head away. "I-I don't remember writing any of it."

The little "oh" that Jaehwan hears makes him mad because that's not all this is, *oh. Jaehwan wishes that oh was all it was, but it wasn't because his wishes never come true even though they are realistic. 

"There was one week where I was happy, where what I wrote everyday was different from what I usually wrote, but happiness is a feeling that doesn't come around often in my life."

"That must suck…"

"I'm used to feeling worthless so don't even begin to feel sorry for me." Jaehwan mutters and he's thankful that Hongbin doesn't say anything else because he doesn't want to talk anymore. 

Jaehwan stands up with the notebook and swings his bookbag over his shoulder, walking away as Hongbin stands up to walk with him. They walk further into the woods and Jaehwan could get them lost because of how far they are going but he isn't stupid.

"Can I confess to something?" Jaehwan asks and Hongbin asks pulls on Jaehwan's bookbag so that they are walking side by side. It makes Jaehwan mad, having his bookbag pulled and shifted by someone he barely knows, but all he does is glare at Hongbin in which Hongbin should have expected. Hongbin nods his head

"I've attempted to kill myself 4 times." Jaehwan says as he shifts his bookbag so that it hangs comfortably on his shoulder. He can feel the dried tears on his cheeks and he would've thought that he was used to the feeling by now, but he wasn't. Jaehwan's surprised when Hongbin has no reaction but he can practically see all of the questions swiming around in Hongbin's mind, and he doesn't ask for any of them because he doesn't really want to answer them.

"Your parent's didn't do anything?" Hongbin asks after a while.

"I asked them not to because… well, I don't really know why I just didn't want them to put me in a hospital." Jaehwan says. He takes a breath before continuing. "Please, if it ever comes down to it, don't put me in a hospital."

"Okay." Hongbin agrees.

"Promise?" Jaehwan asks.

Hongbin nods his head. "Promise."

Jaehwan doesn't remember, doesn't know, how they ended up turning around but in front of them was a street with cars. Jaehwan starts walking again, straight into the traffic, but Hongbin grabs his arm and pulls him back. "Are you crazy?" Hongbin asks Jaehwan and he doesn't let go of his arm, Jaehwan doesn't even make an attempt to pull his arm away.

"What? The cars will just stop. I wouldn't mind if I got hit either, actually I'd rather have that happen." Jaehwan turns to walk away but Hongbin pulls him back again, will not let Jaehwan just walk out into the traffic. Jaehwan sighs as he was forced to wait for the right time to walk across the street and when the light changes from green to red, Jaehwan takes off running from Hongbin. It was a failed attempt to try to get away from Hongbin because he could run too.

Jaehwan ran all the way to the building where the intervention sessions were held and Hongbin was behind him but when Jaehwan stopped running, Hongbin accidentally ran into him. Jaehwan almost felt bad when he saw how bad Hongbin was panting. Almost. 

When Hongbin stood up straight again, he pulled an inhaler out of the front pocket on his pants. Jaehwan didn't watch as Hongbin used the inhaler but he did grow curious as to why Hongbin had to use an inhaler. Did he have asthma? Or something worse? Jaehwan didn't ask though because he didn't want to sound curious to Hongbin.

Jaehwan actually says bye to Hongbin when they leave and he doesn't notice the small smile on his face as he walks out of the parking lot, still holding the notebook. When he gets home and is in his room, he leaves the notebook open and places it on his desk.

 

 

 

Jaehwan was the first person in the intervention room, not even the instructor there, and he glances up when someone enters- Hakyeon. Jaehwan would leave when the instructor came in. Hakyeon sat by Jaehwan and a minute of complete silence passed before Hakyeon takes a deep breath which Jaehwan looks at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Are you okay...?" Hakyeon asks and Jaehwan just looks back down at the floor.

"Why? Did Baekhyun tell everybody that I cut myself?" Jaehwan mutters and Jaehwan wants to take back everything he said just then because Hakyeon didn't know about it, not until Jaehwan said something.

"He didn't tell anybody but, uh, I was only asking because you're so quiet during these meetings, even when you aren't writing. Don't you wanna talk?"

"Why would I want to talk about my problems when nobody would even listen. Who would even care at this point?" Jaehwan asks.

"I would."

"I knew you were going to say that."

They don't say anything else and Jaehwan doesn't know if he wanted to keep talking to Hakyeon or not. But in the end, Jaehwan grabs his book bag when the instructor enters after a few more people pile into the meeting and he was walking towards the door when the instructor grabs his arm. *Why do people just love to grab my arms so harshly and leave bruises?

"Where are you going?" 

"Somewhere other than here." Jaehwan says and he pulls his arm away. But when the instructor tries to get another hold on his arm, Jaehwan panics.

Jaehwan runs.

He doesn't know where he will go but he runs. He wants, needs to get away from everybody. He can't handle it anymore. He feels like he's going to freak out if he stays any longer.

When Jaehwan reaches the doors to exit the building he can already see his mom getting out of the car in a hurry, knows that the instructor already called her about him. "Jaehwan-ah!" Jaehwan hears the instructor call from where he stands at the bottom of a stair case and Jaehwan looks over at the stairs before he pushes open the door.

Jaehwan thinks he wasted too much time standing in front of the door because his mom is so much more closer, could catch Jaehwan if she tried harder but Jaehwan runs through the parking lot. When he ran past his mom not thinking that she wouldn't try to catch him she grabs onto his arm and Jaehwan stops running to turn to look at his mother. "Let go of me!" Jaehwan screams and he harshly tries to pull his arm out of his mother's grasp. When Jaehwan finally gets his mother to let go of his arm she stumbles a bit and as Jaehwan turns around he wipes the tears off of his cheeks. Crying wouldn't help him now.

He continues running through the parking lot and he hears his mother scream when he runs across the road, stopping many cars and he is a little shocked that he didn't get hit. He wanted to get hit, he didn't want to live anymore, he didn't want to fight the pain he feels anymore.

He runs into the woods and he recognizes the tree he and Hongbin had sat at together. Jaehwan sits there again, with his knees to his chest and head burried in his arms as he cried. He couldn't help it. It's been a week since he cut and he can't stand it anymore. The interventions were supposed to help but they don't and it's so, so frustrating to him. He doesn't understand why the instructor didn't help him. 

Jaehwan picks up a rock that was beside him and he finds out that it's sharp from the way it touches his palm. He squeezes the rock in his hand and he doesn't squeeze hard enough to break skin although he wants to. Jaehwan fights the want and throws the rock as far as he can, his arm above his head. When Jaehwan brings his arm back down his sleeve is shifted and he can see that a part of one of the scars on his wirst has re opened and Jaehwan thinks, *this is good enough for now.

It's another 10 minutes before Jaehwan hears footsteps and his first thought is that his mother was looking for him. But he didn't move and he saw that it was Hongbin. Hongbin smiled when he saw Jaehwan sitting in front of the tree, Jaehwan was looking down and didn't see Hongbin's smile. "What are you doing here?" Jaehwan asks, his voice cracking and he won't look at Hongbin because Hongbin will know that he's been crying.

"Looking for you." Hongbin says and when Jaehwan glances up he notices that Hongbin is panting.

"Why?"

"Because… I want to help you."

"Then get me into a new intervention group." Jaehwan says and he wipes his cheek.

Hongbin sits down next to Jaehwan and Hongbin looks at the clouds in the sky. It would start raining soon. "I can't." He says and Jaehwan chuckles.

"I know." Jaehwan picks up a stick that was pressing into one of his thighs and holds it in his hand before he throws it just like he did with the rock. His sleeve falls down his arm showing his opened scar and it's not bleeding a lot, just a few drips of blood that aren't moving down his arm yet. Hongbin doesn't ask about it because he doesn't want to make Jaehwan uncomfortable but it gets a little hard to not stare when Jaehwan doesn't pull down his sleeve again.

"How long has it been since you last… cut?" Hongbin asks and he's surprised when he doesn't hear a sigh.

"A week." Jaehwan says and that's when he sighs. "But… it's too hard. I… I need release or something from all of this pain."

"You could carve on something else other than your body. Like a desk instead." Hongbin suggests and Jaehwan shakes his head.

"Maybe I'll try that."

Hongbin doesn't ask anymore questions that he knows Jaehwan doesn't want to answer. They both stand up when the first drop of rain lands on Hongbin's cheek and Jaehwan has his hood pulled over his head with his book bag hanging on his shoulders.

Jaehwan leads the way back to the building and he doesn't walk right through the traffic, even though he wants to, so that he doesn't scare Hongbin. The rain began to get a little heavier by the time they reached the building.

"Hey, Jaehwan." Hongbin calls when Jaehwan turns away from him. Jaehwan turns back around and Hongbin almost missed the little "hm" from Jaehwan because of the thunder. "Will you walk home with me?"

Jaehwan looks at the sky and then at his shoes before he nods his head and he sees a smile grow on Hongbin's face. Hongbin leads the way and sometimes when they came to a turn, Jaehwan would turn the opposite way on accident. Hongbin would chuckle resulting in a cold stare from Jaehwan for a minute.

When they came up to Hongbin's house, Jaehwan remembers walking through the neighborhood once, the lights are off and the rain is coming down even harder. Jaehwan stands on the porch of Hongbin's house and neither of them are getting wet from the rain anymore. Jaehwan says bye to Hongbin before he turns around to walk down the couple of stairs but Hongbin grabs Jaehwan's wrist and Jaehwan winces as he turns around because of the opened scar. "Don't cut tonight." Hongbin says, more like asks Jaehwan because of the way Hongbin was looking at him.

"No promises." Jaehwan says as he turns around and walks into the rain, not worried if it soaks his clothes. It'd mean he'd get sick and wouldn't have to go to the interventions, or even school. 

The first thing Jaehwan does when he gets home is ignore his parents attempts at trying to talk to him and he changes out of his wet clothes into some dry ones. Jaehwan sits on the counter in the bathroom with paper towels under his wrist as he cuts. He presses the paper towels on top of the new cut and he sighs, he feels better.

 

 

 

Jaehwan is sitting in the bleachers in the school's football feild because he doesn't want to go to his next class, health, and he sees more students walking around. *Maybe they didn't want to go to class either.

Jaehwan's eyes land on a boy with dark hair and he recognizes him from his intervention. Hakyeon. Hakyeon is in his final year, Jaehwan his third year, and they don't really talk a lot because they don't have a lot of classes together. Maybe one. When Hakyeon turns around and sees Jaehwan, he waves but Jaehwan doesn't wave back. Hakyeon walks up the bleachers and the whole time, Jaehwan was looking at his smile. His smile was pretty. Jaehwan wished he had a pretty smile.

"What are you doing out here?" Hakyeon asks.

"Skipping health, you?"

"My friends and I are skipping school today. Do you want to join?"

Jaehwan thinks about it for a second as he looks at Hakyeon's friends and he finds himself nodding his head. Hakyeon grabs his wrist, gently, and pulls him up. Jaehwan walks down the bleachers and Hakyeon lets go of his wrist. His mother will kill him when she finds out that Jaehwan skipped a day but Jaehwan doesn't really care honestly.

Hakyeon introduces Jaehwan to his friends, Taekwoon and Daehyun. The most Jaehwan says to them at first is hi, but then Hakyeon gets him to talk more. He learns that Hakyeon met his friends when he was in his third year, Taekwoon and Daehyun in their second year then. Jaehwan remembers seeing Daehyun in one of his classes but it takes him a while until he remembers which class.

"Don't we take math together?" Jaehwan asks, looking at Daehyun. Daehyun nods his head and smiles but Jaehwan doesn't smile back.

They run across the football field and climb over a fence so that they are standing with traffic in front of them. Jaehwan wonders if they would freak out like Hongbin did if he tries to just walk out into the traffic but Jaehwan won't try to do it. Nobody knows how bad he wants to end his own life and getting hit by a car seems the easiest to him at this point. So why doesn't he just do it? Jaehwan doesn't know why.

Jaehwan is standing in between Hakyeon and Taekwoon when they can walk across the road but they run instead. Jaehwan wished he had Hongbin here with him because he feels like he knows Hongbin better than them. 

They end up in a forest and Jaehwan can hear a lake, or maybe it's just his imagination. 

Daehyun ends up tripping on a stick and getting a face full of leaves and it makes all four of them laugh. Jaehwan just wasn't laughing like the three of them, only a chuckle and a real smile, but it was something more than his normal face. Jaehwan actually felt happy for once.

Jaehwan was right, there was a lake, and Hakyeon was the first to get pushed into it by Taekwoon after a couple of minutes of them just brushing their fingers across the surface of the water. Jaehwan knew that no one would try to push him in and when Hakyeon screams, "Yah! These are the only clothes I have assholes!", Jaehwan laughs.

When Daehyun accidentally runs too close to the edge of the lake Hakyeon grabs his foot and pulls him into the water. Jaehwan watched Daehyun quickly throw his hands up to try to cover his mouth and nose but it's a failed attempt because he lands in the water too soon. Daehyun comes back up coughing and spitting out water all while laughing and Jaehwan doesn't know how much he's going to smile today.

Hakyeon swims over to Jaehwan and Jaehwan looks at him before looking back down at the water instead. "You can take your shoes off and put your feet in if you want." Hakyeon says and Jaehwan just shakes his head. He was fine with just letting his fingertips graze the water.

Hakyeon and Daehyun climb out of the water and Taekwoon was laughing the whole time, a smile trying to show on Jaehwan's face. Jaehwan wondered what time it was, but then he remembered that if he skipped all day he wouldn't have to go to the interventions. Or maybe he would, just to see Hongbin. He didn't know yet.

"Do you guys go to interventions too?" Jaehwan asks Daehyun and Taekwoon.

"He does," Daehyun points to Taekwoon, "but I don't."

"Why do you go?" Jaehwan hopes Taekwoon will answer because he's noticed Taekwoon is quiet around new people.

Taekwoon shrugs his shoulders. "I don't really know why… I just go to them."

"My intervention doesn't even help me." Jaehwan mutters and he almost trips on a stick like Daehyun did but Hakyeon holds him up. Jaehwan was thankful.

"Why?" Daehyun asks.

"I… don't really want to talk about it." Jaehwan says and when he looks at Hakyeon he can tell the Hakyeon knows what day he was talking about.

 

Daehyun and Hakyeon's clothes were mostly dried by the time they all decided to leave. Jaehwan can't believe that he actually had a little bit of fun, but he probably wouldn't do it again because he feels like a burden to the three of them. As they walked across a side walk, Jaehwan didn't exactly know where they were going because there was an hour left until school was over, Daehyun walked next to Taekwoon while Jaehwan and Hongbin stayed behind them. Jaehwan looked over at Hakyeon when he shivered.

"Cold?" Jaehwan asks.

"Very, if it wasn't for Taekwoon I wouldn't be cold right now." Hakyeon says, loud enough for Taekwoon to hear and Taekwoon smirks as he turns around and walks backwards.

"You were the one that said you wanted to go swimming." Taekwoon says.

"But I didn't think you'd push me in!" Hakyeon chuckles and Jaehwan almost smiles but it fades away when Taekwoon turns back around.

"And I didn't think I'd get pulled in." Daehyun adds and Hakyeon hits his back softly while he laughs.

When they get far enough and Jaehwan knows where he's at, he decides that he doesn't want to go to the interventions after all. School ended by the time Jaehwan said bye to them and he hears that Daehyun wants to be friends with him as he walks away. *But why would anyone want to be my friend? I don't even talk most of the time.

 

 

 

"When is everyone going to stop pretending to like me?" Jaehwan asks Hongbin in a whisper as he and Hongbin walk together in the woods. Jaehwan decides, at that moment, that he wants to go to that lake in the forest with Hongbin. It'd be fun, for Hongbin anyways because Jaehwan never has fun anymore.

"When you stop saying nobody likes you."

"But nobody does like me."

"Jae, nobody cares about what you do, you know that right? And some people, when they see you walking in the hallways or even just sitting there looking like death, are glad to know that you're still alive." Hongbin says and Jaehwan notices that sometimes he uses his hands when he talks, like now, as he glares at Hongbin for shortening his name.

Jaehwan doesn't say anything back for a couple of minutes, maybe 10 at the least, until he sees that Hongbin's shoe is untied. "Tie your shoe." He says and Hongbin just shrugs. "I'll be fine."

Jaehwan also tells Hongbin about the day he skipped school and hung out with Hakyeon, Daehyun, and Taekwoon. He chuckles when he remembers how clumsy Daehyun was, and how happy Taekwoon and Hakyeon were. But his smile disappears when he remembers how he was just *there, not really being involved with the things they did. Hongbin noticed his smile disappear but he didn't say anything.

"So how… how are you doing? With your cutting… problem?" Hongbin asks and Jaehwan can hear that Hongbin is trying to not make him uncomfortable.

"Two new cuts." Jaehwan murmurs and he wonders why he even tells Hongbin.

"Do they hurt?"

"No." 

"Oh.."

Jaehwan wonders what Hongbin expected him to say, since the only reason he does it is because he wants to get rid of the pain.

Hongbin nods his head and puts a smile on his face.

As Hongbin was walking he wished that he had tied his shoe because he trips on one of the shoe laces and Jaehwan bursts out laughing when Hongbin falls face first like Daehyun did two days ago. Except it's different because Jaehwan is laughing, can't breathe because of how hard he's laughing. But why? Was it because of the noise Hongbin made? Jaehwan didn't know.

Jaehwan falls onto the ground still laughing and he can't see Hongbin's pink cheeks or the smile on Hongbin's face. Hongbin kicks leaves in Jaehwan's direction and he ends up smiling the biggest smile (not bigger than Jaehwan's in this moment though) because he actually made Jaehwan smile and laugh and be happy for once. Probably the only time he'd see Jaehwan be happy.

Jaehwan eventually stops laughing and he is just sitting on top of leaves but the smile never leaves. "That was the happiest I've ever been in three years." Jaehwan says and Hongbin helps him up after he tied his shoe.

Jaehwan doesn't know which way they walk but he continues to giggle at Hongbin until he's laughing again and Hongbin has to hold him up so that he doesn't fall again. When Jaehwan doesn't laugh anymore and certainly doesn't need Hongbin to help keep him up, Jaehwan almost gets rosy cheeked because Hongbin keeps his arm around his waist. Did Hongbin usually do this with everybody he walked with? No. Jaehwan knew that because he's walked with Hongbin tons of times before. Maybe he just forgot.

Jaehwan kind of liked having Hongbin's arm around his waist, it made him feel safe in a way he wouldn't be able to explain verbally. But it made them walk closer together, Jaehwan not knowing if he liked that or not. It didn't matter anyways because Hongbin takes his arm away and takes a step to the side, to put a bit of space between them so that they wouldn't step on each other's feet. Or so that Jaehwan wouldn't step on Hongbin's shoelace, pulling it free and Hongbin would most likely trip again. Hongbin didn't want that.

"What do you do after school and the interventions?" Hongbin asks after a while of walking through the leaves.

"I don't really know… sometimes I do my homework and I ignore my parents all of the time." 

"Why do you ignore your parents?"

"Because they have never cared about me and because they make my bipolar disorder worse than what it really is…" Jaehwan trails off and never really finishes his sentence even though he has more than a thousand reasons that he hates his parents. Especially his mom. 

Jaehwan actually offers to walk Hongbin home and it surprises himself because he wouldn't offer to walk anyone else home. Maybe he did it because Hongbin was… special? Hongbin accepts and it's not difficult the second time walking to Hongbin's house because the path is recognizable in Jaehwan's mind.

When they are both standing in front of the door, Hongbin standing on one of the steps and Jaehwan still on the sidewalk, Jaehwan turns to walk away. Hongbin calls him back and Jaehwan doesn't even get annoyed, well maybe a little bit.

"Will you stay with me? I don't like being home alone." Hongbin asks and it's his smile that has Jaehwan nodding his head. 

Hongbin and Jaehwan enter the house when Hongbin gets the door unlocked, Jaehwan not getting to look around the front room for long because Hongbin drags him into his room which was downstairs. Jaehwan almost misses the last step but Hongbin doesn't notice, or maybe he did and he just didn't say anything about it. Either way, Jaehwan was thankful.

Jaehwan sits down on Hongbin's bed and Hongbin plops down next to him, laying down. "What year are you?" Hongbin asks as he plays with one of the zippers on Jaehwan's book bag before Jaehwan takes it off and puts it on the floor.

"Third."

"I was a third year but I had to get taken out of school."

"Why?" Jaehwan asks as he looks at Hongbin but Hongbin was looking up at the ceiling of his room.

"I.. don't really want to talk about it.." Hongbin whispers and Jaehwan understands. He actually truly understands something for once. *Maybe I'm less of a failure now…

He listens to Hongbin taking deep breaths and he wonders why Hongbin has to do that. Hongbin coughs too and Jaehwan wonders, for a moment, if Hongbin is sick.

"Are you sick?"

"In a way.." Hongbin whispers and Jaehwan can hear that he is uncomfortable from the way he whispers. "So um, did you cut the night I didn't tell you to?" Hongbin changes the subject and he sits up.

Jaehwan nods his head.

"Oh.."

" You don't understand how hard it is not to though. There… there's just so much pain and cutting takes it away and I don't know…. it's just hard."

"Does anyone else know besides me?"

"Well… this really annoying kid Baekhyun, the one that you helped me with and Hakyeon because I told him without even thinking, I thought Baekhyun would tell everybody my secret but he didn't.."

"Do you think Hakyeon is going to tell anyone?"

"No, he's smart and knows when to and when to not tell something to somebody else."

"Aren't you worried that he is going to tell your parents?"

Jaehwan shakes his head. "He probably already knows from what I wrote at the interventions how much I hate my parents because he sits next to me and I would always find him staring at my notebook when it wasn't his turn to speak. I would never say anything though because I thought that maybe, just maybe, he could help me get into a different intervention group. Or maybe even help me just a little by giving me little encouragements everyday.… but he never did do that, I was stupid for thinking he would."

"Your not stupid for thinking someone would help you, do you want encouragements everyday?" Hongbin asks and hesitantly, Jaehwan slightly nods his head. He didn't know if he'd look selfish to Hongbin or not and he wonders why he even said yes. *Because I need it. That's why I said yes.

Hongbin asks for Jaehwan's phone first and he hands it over willingly. Jaehwan watched as Hongbin unlocked the phone, Jaehwan should put a lock on it, and adds his number to Jaehwan's phone. "Okay, heres your first one: walking into traffic won't help a thing and you'll realize before you get hit or right before you get hit but the car stops an inch away, that everything is solveable. You just have to find the answer to them."

Jaehwan smiles. Maybe Hongbin would be his answer.

 

 

 

Jaehwan didn't go to his interventions for another day, and he doesn't see Hongbin either which was the only down side of not going to them. Of course, Jaehwan could just text him but he thought he would annoy Hongbin. Jaehwan went to school though, had to because he doesn't want his grades to drop again. Surprisingly, he didn't get any homework for the first time in forever and when Jaehwan steps into his room, he throws his book bag in the corner of the room.

He stops at his desk and the notebook with the one page of drawings is the first thing he notices. Jaehwan picks at the corner of a page that was sticking out before he opens the cover to see that he wrote on the first page. He kept flipping through the pages until he notices a change in his writing but he doesn't stop to read it because he probably already knows what it says. Instead he tears out the page that was hanging out because it was making him mad, it wasn't even sticking out much just a little corner of it, and he crumples it up before he can read it.

Jaehwan's phone vibrates against the surface of the desk and he forgot that he left it there that morning before he left for school. He flips it over and unlocks the screen. *New Message: Hongbin

From: Hongbin  
3:37 p.m.  
Hey…

To:Hongbin  
3:39 p.m.  
Hi

From:Hongbin  
3:43  
What are you doing?

Jaehwan stops texting Hongbin for a couple of minutes because he was playing with a pair of scissors and he thought about cutting but then he looks back at his phone screen and sees Hongbin's name. Jaehwan sighs as he opens the scissors and closes them on the side of the desk. A line was made. Instead he holds one of the blades in his palm and carves into the desk like that, careful to not cut the skin of his hand. He just makes a bunch of lines, maybe 6. *And this is supposed to make me feel better how?, Jaehwan thinks.

To: Hongbin  
3:57  
Nothing

From: Hongbin   
4:01  
So does that mean I can come over then?

To: Hongbin  
Not necessarily but sure. I'll pick you up so that you dont get lost trying to find your way here.

Jaehwan stands up and looks around his room to see if it needed cleaning. He picks up the dirty clothes laying around and fixes his bed a little and then he looks for his car keys. Jaehwan looks under his bed because that was the last place he found them and when he pulls them out, he also pulls out another notebook. He doesn't have time to look through it though so he just keeps it there and as he heads downstairs he notices that he was bleeding. He cut his hand after all.

It was a bit hard driving back with Hongbin because he would throw a fit if he saw that Jaehwan's hand was cut, but maybe he wouldn't because it happened when Jaehwan was carving on his desk. Jaehwan didn't know though so he kept that hand on the wheel, the cut part not wrapped around it although it wasn't bleeding anymore and it was little.

"You have a nice car." Hongbin says as Jaehwan pulls into the driveway. Jaehwan doesn't say anything to him as they exit the car and enter the house and Jaehwan didn't know why, but he thought it was cute when Hongbin began looking around his house.

"Just stay strong and the days will hurt less." Hongbin says and Jaehwan looks at him confusingly. But then he remembers that Hongbin said that he'd give him little encouragements everyday.

His parents weren't home and Jaehwan was happy they weren't because they would ask who Hongbin was and they would annoy Jaehwan about it all the time until they found out that Hongbin was just a friend. Was that what Hongbin was to Jaehwan? Yes, Jaehwan concludes. *It feels nice having a friend for once.

Jaehwan drags Hongbin up to his room and the first thing Hongbin notices is the desk. "You carved instead of cutting?" Hongbin asks as he runs his finger tips over the lines.

"I was doing that when we were texting, didn't really help much." Jaehwan says and he sits down on his bed.

"You'll get used to it. If you keep doing it."

Jaehwan nods his head and he doesn't see any harm when Hongbin continues to look at what is on the desk. He's curious and Jaehwan understands. Except Jaehwan freaks out a little when Hongbin pulls out his intervention notebook from underneath the one he drew in and Jaehwan jumps up.

"Is that your intervention notebook?" Hongbin asks as Jaehwan takes it from him. Jaehwan nods his head.

"You still don't want me to read it? It's been a week since you told me about it and I'm worried about you. The only thing you tell me is about your cutting and I ask for you to tell me. I care about you, Jaehwan."

"I know." Jaehwan mutters as he opens the notebook and turns to a random page because they were all the same.

"So why are you shutting me out?"

"Don't take it personally, I shut everybody out."

"But why?"

"Because it's easier."

Jaehwan hands Hongbin the notebook and sighs. "Just read it." Jaehwan says when Hongbin starts protesting saying that he didn't want to read it if it was going to make Jaehwan uncomfortable. Jaehwan watches Hongbin's mouth shape to the letters and words but doesn't hear anything come from him. He doesn't get sad when he starts to see Hongbin's bottom lip quiver because that was what he always felt, was even feeling it now, sad and depressed.

"I-I…" Hongbin stutters when he finishes reading it.

"I know, you don't have to tell me that it's sad that I tell that to myself and that I need somebody's help because I already know I do." Jaehwan says and he feels his eyes start to fill with tears. *Not again.. not in front of Hongbin.

"What did you think about after you read this?" Hongbin asks and it's the first time Jaehwan has ever seen Hongbin come close to crying and he decides that he doesn't want to see Hongbin ever cry.

"That I can't do anything right and I'm meant to die young." Jaehwan mutters and Hongbin almost doesn't hear. Jaehwan takes the notebook away from Hongbin with trembling hands and he bites his lip as he turns around. The stuttered breathing comes and then the tears and Jaehwan thought that he wasn't going to ever cry in front of Hongbin again. *I'm just a failure.

Jaehwan drops the notebook as he walked to his bed and the page gets an ugly fold through the middle of it but Jaehwan doesn't even care about it anymore. Jaehwan cries and he gets choked up which makes him hate everything about himself because Hongbin was listening to him.

He sits on his bed and he tries to not cry by holding his breath and keeping his eyes closed. When Hongbin sits down next to him Jaehwan is calmed down and he just hiccups a little. Hongbin wipes away the tears on Jaehwan's cheeks and Jaehwan smiles a little.

"I must look like an idiot right now."

"No, you don't. It's okay to cry."

Jaehwan rests his head on Hongbin's shoulder and he doesn't really know why he did it. He still had his eyes closed but when he opened them he saw that Hongbin was looking at him. Their eyes met for a few seconds before Jaehwan begins to find it a bit weird and looks away. Jaehwan chuckles awkwardly and he lifts his head up from Hongbin's shoulder.

Jaehwan stands up and drags Hongbin to the door, heading down the stairs and they are walking out of the front door. "You want to know something Jaehwan?" Hongbin asks.

"What?"

"You're the strongest person, mentally, that I know."

Jaehwan was going to say thank you to him but he decided to just keep quiet. He looked up at the sky and he thought it might rain soon so they couldn't be outside for long. Jaehwan didn't even know what they were going to do and he just wanted to bring a more happy atmosphere between them instead of a sad one, if it was evem possible with how Jaehwan always was. He was never one for fun.

Since there was nothing to do in the front they went to the back of the house because nobody could see them there, not that they would do anything anyways.

Jaehwan sits down in the grass and he finds a ball that wasn't his and he threw it over the fence because it must have been some kid's ball. Hongbin sits down next to Jaehwan and Hongbin crosses his arms across his chest. It was getting pretty cold outside, it was nearing the end of September.

"What day is it?" Hongbin asks as he pulls grass from the ground and places it on Jaehwan's thigh.

"Tuesday the 22nd." Jaehwan says and he doesn't wipe the grass off, he let's Hongbin continue to put it on his thigh.

"My birthday is next week."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"We could, um, probably hang out together… I don't know, only if you want to." Jaehwan offers and Hongbin smiles.

"Sounds like a plan to me. But you have to promise me that you will!" Hongbin holds out his pinkie and Jaehwan rolls his eyes as he pinkie promises Hongbin that he won't bail on him.

After the pinkie promise Hongbin throws the grass that was in his hand in Jaehwan's hair and Jaehwan yells at him. Jaehwan pulls out his own handful of grass and throws it at Hongbin but he misses because Hongbin was already getting up and running away. Jaehwan laughs as he pulls more grass and chases after Hongbin, which wasn't very hard because they were in a limited space except Hongbim runs out to the front yard. 

Jaehwan ends up chasing him back to the back yard and he stuffs the grass in Hongbin's shirt. Jaehwan was laughing way too hard when Hongbin shoves grass into his shirt and he falls down, bringing Hongbin with him. Hongbin was laying on top of Jaehwan and he laughed with Jaehwan. He ends up being knocked off about a minute after they calmed down from their laughter and looking at each other.

 

 

 

A lot could happen in a week. Jaehwan got in more arguements with his parents and they got to the point where Jaehwan broke down because he just didn't understand what he does wrong. He cut himself more, maybe 2 more scars added but he cut himself more than just two times and he didn't go to the interventions. He was broken and it was the 29th, Hongbin's birthday. Jaehwan promised that he'd be there with Hongbin and the promises that other people may get broken, but he doesn't break his own promises. Especially not the ones he made to Hongbin.

Jaehwan wore a different color other than black, just an old white t-shirt, but he still wore a black jacket over it and black pants. His sneakers were gray though. Hongbin would be happy that he wasn't in complete black.

He texts Hongbin to tell him he's outside because there was no way that he was going to ring the door bell or knock. The door opens a minute later and he sees a smiling Hongbin.

"I didn't think you were going to come." Hongbin says as he closes the door behind Jaehwan and Jaehwan heads into Hongbin's room, already knowing where it was because he remembered from the last time he was there.

"I wouldn't do this for anyone else, but it's you so I had to come." Jaehwan lays on Hongbin's bed, he was way too tired to be outside of his own bedroom. But maybe he might just get some sleep with Hongbin by his side. Jaehwan didn't know.

Hongbin smiles. "Thanks… you must have had a crappy week."

"How'd you know?"

"You look exhausted and it looks like you've been crying a lot."

Hongbin sits on his bed next to Jaehwan who was laying on his stomach, his head rested on his arms. Hongbin rubs Jaehwan's back and Jaehwan never thought that something so little could feel so good.

"My parents and I get into a ton of arguements, there just happened to be one every night for the past week. I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong that is making them hate me so much."

"You're not doing anything wrong, Jae."

Jaehwan smiles at Hongbin's nickname for him, he liked how it sounded coming from Hongbin. He doesn't say anything back for a while and he almost falls asleep from Hongbin continuously dragging his fingertips across his back but he sits up. "Oh, happy birthday too." Jaehwan says before he lays back down on his stomach after taking off his jacket.

"Thank you."

Hongbin notices how many cuts now cover Jaehwan's wrists but he doesn't say anything because he knew it'd make Jaehwan uncomfortable. Instead he gently runs his hands over them before he begins to play with Jaehwan's hair. Hongbin can tell that Jaehwan never gets enough sleep, can tell he didn't even get an hour, so he lets Jaehwan sleep. They move up to the pillows and Jaehwan curls up into a ball next to Hongbin. Hongbin finds it cute.

"This probably isn't how you wanted to spend your birthday."

"Don't worry about it. As long as I'm with you I'm happy, now get some sleep because you need it."

"Can I just sleep here the whole night?" Jaehwan jokes but he's surprised when Hongbin says that he can.

Hongbin goes back to playing with Jaehwan's hair and it gets him to go to sleep quickly. Hongbin hoped that he'd get more than an hour of sleep tonight and Hongbin barely gets any sleep himself because he was making sure that Jaehwan never woke up. He kept running his hands through Jaehwan's hair and when Jaehwan drapes an arm over his waist, Hongbin's heart speeds up and he snuggles closer to the sleeping boy.

 

When Jaehwan wakes up in the morning he has Hongbin in his embrace and he smiles as he pulls Hongbin closer to him. _Was this a dream? What does this mean?_

 

 

 

The arguements with Jaehwan's parents only got worse and Jaehwan broke down each time, yelling back and crying. He couldn't take it anymore. He didn't want to be alive.

Jaehwan goes into the garage that he's only been in twice since his bipolar disorder became more active. He wanted one thing, pills. Jaehwan notices a rack with a bunch of boxes all aligned on the rows. He starts looking through the boxes in the middle to see if he could find any pills. 

Jaehwan finds a couple of containers but they were all expired. He sighs as he throws the box back onto the rack and he was walking out when his eyes landed on a bottle of spray paint. Jaehwan leaves after he picks it up and he goes up to his room. He puts the spray paint bottle on the floor.

It's when his bedroom door is shut that he realizes that he never checked the bathroom for pills. He swings his bedroom door open and runs down the stairs into the bathroom. Jaehwan opens the cabinet and he searches for pills, anything really. He comes across sleeping pills and he takes them after checking the expiration date. He knows that he shouldn't be looking for a way to kill himself but sometimes, it's just so hard not to. 

 

 

 

Jaehwan skips up the stairs that lead to the roof and before he can get a chance to slip a brick in between the door and the wall, he accidentally lets go of the door. "Fuck!" Jaehwan screams as he pulls out his phone. He'd have to text Hongbin to come and let him in again, but he puts his phone back in his pocket because he didn't have to text Hongbin yet.

Jaehwan runs a hand through his hair and he sighs as he throws his book bag down. He sits on the edge of the roof again, the wind not blowing just yet. It would start to pick up in a couple of minutes though.

The whole time Jaehwan was sitting on the roof alone he never looked away from the ground. He thought about jumping the whole time but sometimes he'd remember Hongbin. He just couldn't do it because he couldn't leave Hongbin and he didn't know why. Jaehwan doesn't love Hongbin, was even told that Hongbin just wanted to help him. 

Jaehwan sighs. Was he happy around Hongbin? Yes, very happy. But what was it about Hongbin that actually made him that happy? He knew that Hongbin cared for him and that he wanted to help, but there's something else to it. *Maybe I really do-

After what feels like an hour he hears the door to the roof open and Jaehwan jumps from the noise it caused. Jaehwan scowled when he saw that it was Baekhyun and he was going to tell him to move the brick but he didn't want to talk to Baekhyun. 

"Hey…" Baekhyun says awkwardly and he sits down next to Jaehwan, though he wasn't sitting on the edge of the roof with his legs hanging off. He sat on the edge of the roof backwards so that his legs aren't hanging off. Baekhyun noticed the little orange container that was in the side pocket of Jaehwan's bookbag.

"How long have you been out here?" Baekhyun asks.

"An hour… why do you care?"

"Because you look really cold. Your fingers don't have any color to them."

Jaehwan doesn't say anything back.

"I'm s-"

"Why didn't you tell everybody?" Jaehwan cuts Baekhyun off and he still never moves his eyes away from the ground. The people below him look like ants.

"What?"

"Why didn't you tell everybody my secret that I self-harm?" Jaehwan was harsh and he knew it, and he knew that Baekhyun knew that he didn't like him.

"Because I know when to not cross the line."

"Oh…"

"I'm sorry." Baekhyun says as Jaehwan pulls out his phone and texts Hongbin to come to the roof to get him. It'd take him a couple of minutes though.

Jaehwan scoffs. "You're sorry?"

"I..I-"

"I'm sitting here, debating whether I should jump or not and you're sorry?" Jaehwan says and Baekhyun won't look at him. "You don't get to feel sorry because you're part of the reason why I'm even sitting here." Jaehwan says and he can't wait for Hongbin to open that door.

Jaehwan stands up when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket and walks away from Baekhyun.

"Jaehwan!" Baekhyun calls when the door opens.

"What?" Jaehwan doesn't turn around to face Baekhyun, only looks at Hongbin. When Baekhyun doesn't say anything Jaehwan continues to walk forward and he doesn't know why, but he slipped the brick in front of the door.

"What was that about?" Hongbin asks.

"Baekhyun tried to say sorry to me…" Jaehwan says. "And I asked him why he didn't tell everybody that I self harm."

Hongbin nods his head. Their shoulders bump together as they continue down the steps and each time, Jaehwan begins to feel a bit warmer. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"No problem."

They exit the stair case and Jaehwan wonders when Baekhyun would come down the stairs. But he didn't care anyways. They wait outside for a minute or two before Jaehwan realizes that his mother wasn't there.

"Will you come with me? I don't want to be alone with my mother right now…" Hongbin asks and when Jaehwan looks up, a car drives up to them. Hongbin's mother. Jaehwan nods his head.

He doesn't ask what's going on between Hongbin and his mother because it wasn't any of his business. It was a bit awkward with all of the silence in the car but Jaehwan didn't think about it. 

Hongbin sat in the back with Jaehwan and Hongbin took notice when Jaehwan began rubbing the cuts on his wrists. Hongbin looks down and he gets worried when he sees that there were more cuts but they wouldn't leave scars. Hongbin runs one of his fingers over them and Jaehwan jumps from the touch. He didn't know Hongbin was looking at his cuts.

When they reach Hongbin's house, Hongbin drags Jaehwan out of the car before it came to a complete stop. The front door was already unlocked and Hongbin quickly walked in, still pulling Jaehwan behind him. Hongbin lets go of his wrist when they are going down the stairs to his room and the first thing Jaehwan watches Hongbin do is grab the inhaler that was sitting on his dresser. Jaehwan and Hongbin sit on the bed and Jaehwan puts his bookbag down by his feet.

"Why do you have to use that?" Jaehwan asks as he watched Hongbin shake the inhaler and use it.

"Because… I have holes in both sides of my heart." Hongbin mutters as he throws the inhaler somewhere behind him on the bed, Jaehwan looking at him confusingly. "I'm dying." 

Jaehwan's mouth drops. "I-"

"It's okay, don't worry about it." Hongbin says and his voice cracks. Jaehwan feels bad.

"Hongbin, you just told me that you are dying… of course I'm going to worry about it!" Jaehwan is freaking out.

"My paremt's can't afford all off the medical care that I need and I don't want to put them in a huge debt that they'll never be able to pay off. They were upset when I declined the offer to be healthy…"

"You're crazy." Jaehwan says and he can't stop rubing his cuts. 

"I know." Hongbin sighs before continuing. "In April my doctor said that my condition would get better by August but… it only got w-orse." Hongbin chokes up and he looks up at the ceiling, taking a couple of deep breaths. Jaehwan notices a tear running down the boy's cheek and he wipes it away, also rubbing Hongbin's back.

"My condition, it…. it stops me from doing physical activities and they said that I can't run, not until my condition gets better but it won't anytime soon.

"Is that why you got taken out of school?" Jaehwan asks and Hongbin nods his head. "And… if you can't run, then why did you run to me so many times? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I run to you because I care about you, Jae. I care about you so fucking much and it hurts me to see you giving in to the negativity. It hurts me when I see more cuts on your wrists. And I never told you becuse I wanted to have fun. It hurts when I breathe heavy, it hurts like hell, but I just want to have fun and spend my time doing things instead of sitting around."

Jaehwan was speechless. He didn't know what to say. His hand stopped moving on Hongbin's back when Hongbin said that he cared about him. "I-I-"

"Just don't say anything, please." Hongbin whispers and Jaehwan nods his head.

Hongbin sighs as Jaehwan moves his hand down Hongbin's arm, stopping at his hand. Jaehwan intertwines their fingers together and he actually smiles. Hongbin rests his head on Jaehwan's shoulder and Jaehwan squeezes his hand.

 

 

 

Thursdays. Jaehwan hates Thursdays. Particularly the first Thursday in October. It meant tests which cause stress on Jaehwan because his parents always expect him to get the best grade he can. This Thursday means he gets to feel like he failed another thing in his life. This Thursday means his parents will care about him less. Jaehwan hates Thursdays.

He has to take a test right after his interventions, so he can't leave with Hongbin today. Jaehwan sighs as the intervention ends and he swings his bookbag onto his shoulder. He was the last to leave like always and as he rushes to the steps Hongbin calls for him.

"What?" Jaehwan says as he stops and turns around. Hongbin runs up to him.

"I have to talk to you about something." Hongbin says.

"Can it wait?" Jaehwan asks as he opens the doors to exit the building.

"Not really... no, it can't." 

Jaehwan doesn't reply back as Hongbin watches him get into his mother's car and Hongbin sighs. _Only three days_ , Hongbin thinks.

 

"I have to get back to work-"

"I can walk home after." Jaehwan interrupts his mother and he hurries to get inside his school. He couldn't miss this test, he couldn't fail this test. Jaehwan actually studied for more than an hour for this test which consisted of lots of breaks and the sound of books falling to the floor. 

Jaehwan almost misses a step heading to the classroom but he was lucky because nobody saw him. When he enters the classroom Jaehwan feels his heart beating harder than it ever has before and he hears the teacher talking (he never remembered her name) but he doesn't listen, only hears that he has an hour. The entire hour Jaehwan felt pressured to pass the test, that if he failed his parents would never look at him with a pleasant face again. 

The first 10 minutes were wasted because Jaehwan was only staring at his test and rolling his pencil around in his hand. Halfway through he starts to get stuck on some of the questions and he guesses on those. Jaehwan checks that his name was written and spelled correctly at least 5 times before turning in his test. The teacher, Jaehwan really should learn her name, smiles at him as he leaves the classroom and Jaehwan sighs deeply. As he leaves the school, he prays that he passed.

Jaehwan gets a text and he doesn't check who it is because he's worried about his test, would probably drop his phone if he tried to hold it because his hands are shaking. He gets a call but he just lets it ring in his pocket. Two more calls have him pulling his phone out of his pocket and he groans when he sees that it's Hongbin calling him. "I'm sorry…" Jaehwan mutters as he presses the end button.

He kicks a rock all the way home and he doesn't know how it stayed with him the whole time. When Jaehwan looks up he sees Hongbin sitting on the steps in front of his house and he groans. Jaehwan walks up as he pulls his keys out of his pocket and Hongbin stands up.

"Where have you been? I've been trying to call you and you never answered." Hongbin says and Jaehwan's hand is still shaking as he tries to unlock the door. Hongbin keeps talking as they walk up to Jaehwan's room and Jaehwan sighs.

"You haven't talked to me all week and- and the thing I have to talk to you about can't wait and you just le-"

"Will you just shut up for a second?" Jaehwan snaps and he sighs when Hongbin closes his mouth. "I had a test today, okay? I haven't talked to you all week because I have been doing nothing but studying for that damn thing. I- I don't even know if I'll pass it. I am stressed out and I don't need you yelling at me because I left you today. I couldn't miss this test. It's the most important one that I'll probably ever take so of course I couldn't stay for even a fucking second to talk to you."

"I'm sorry, I didn't- I didn't know you had to take a test today." Hongbin says and when he looks at Jaehwan, he notices that Jaehwan's face is red. 

Jaehwan closes his eyes as he drops his key and Hongbin freezes when he sees blood. A little bit of blood drips from Jaehwan's finger before he walks into the bathroom, Hongbin following. Jaehwan presses toilet paper to the three cuts that the key gave him from holding onto it so tightly and pressing it into his palm. Once it stops bleeding he runs his hand under water. Jaehwan feels arms circle around his waist as he holds a towel against his hand.

Jaehwan tries to get Hongbin off of him but Hongbin's arms just get tighter around him and he stops trying after a couple of minutes. "Do you still want to hear what I have to tell you?"

"I'd rather keep wondering than hear you keep talking." Jaehwan says harshly as he glares at Hongbin through the mirror hanging on the wall.

Hongbin sighs against Jaehwan's neck and Jaehwan watches him snuggle against his shoulder. Nothing Hongbin does makes Jaehwan's glare go away and Hongbin sighs again. 

"Stop with the face." Hongbin says and he has his eyes closed as he rests his cheek on Jaehwan's shoulder.

Hongbin can *feel Jaehwan still glaring at him and he starts to rub Jaehwan's hip. He smiles when he hears Jaehwan sigh but he whimpers when Jaehwan pushes him away harshly.

Jaehwan walks out of the bathroom and into his bedroom but before Hongbin can enter his bedroom, the door is slammed and Hongbin knows that Jaehwan locked the door. Hongbin bangs on the door two times with his fist and he laughs when Jaehwan yells at him.

"I'm not letting you in so stop trying!" Jaehwan yells and Hongbin jumps when he hears a loud thump on the other side of the door. Jaehwan most likely threw his notebooks at the door.

After at least 20 minutes of just sitting outside of the door and Jaehwan still not letting him in, Hongbin stands up. "I'm leaving, Jae." Hongbin says.

"Good! Go away!" Jaehwan yells and Hongbin sighs as he leaves.

 

 

 

Hongbin stands awkwardly as he waits for the door to open. He knew Jaehwan wasn't going to answer the door so that meant one of his parents would. What is he going to do with his hands? Hongbin doesn't have time to figure that out because the door opens and Hongbin asks Jaehwan's mother if Jaehwan was there. She nods her head and points him to the stairs.

He's hesitant before he knocks on the door and he chews on his botton lip as he fiddles with his hands for a while before actually knocking. 

"Go away mom!" Jaehwan yells.

"It's Hongbin."

"Go away! I don't want to talk."

There's another thump from the other side of the door which meant that more notebooks were thrown. Instead of leaving like Jaehwan asked, Hongbin sits down and rests his back against the door. "We have to talk, it really can't wait any longer."

"It can wait until tomorrow!"

Hongbin sighs. Looks like he'd be sitting here for while. 

Hongbin was drifting off to sleep when he hears another thump and he knows that Jaehwan's going to run out of notebooks at some point. Hongbin hears shuffling on the other side of the door and he stands up but after a minute or so, he presses his forhead against the door and closes his eyes.

He doesn't know how much time had passed since he'd been standing but he knows that the door was opening. Hongbin screams when he almost falls over but Jaehwan catches him by his arm and pulls him into the room.

"Were you falling alseep?" Jaehwan asks.

Hongbin nods his head as he wipes his eyes and he lays on the bed. Jaehwan doesn't come near him.

"The keys are still there?" Hongbin asks.

Jaehwan nods his head.

"Do.. you want to talk now?"

Another nod and Jaehwan sits on the edge of the bed.

"I'm leaving," Hongbin begins and he watches as Jaehwan looks back at him with raised eyebrows. "For a week."

"Why?"

"To get better help for my condition."

Jaehwan nods his head before he falls back onto the bed. Hongbin scoots closer to him and runs his hands through Jaehwan's hair. *This feels nice, Jaehwan thinks.

"When do you leave?" Jaehwan asks.

"Sunday."

Jaehwan sighs and he grabs Hongbin's wrist so that Hongbin stops running his hand through his messy hair. He lets go of Hongbin's wrist and Hongbin pouts although Jaehwan won't see it. Jaehwan honestly looks like he's been crying and Hongbin hopes it's not because he failed his test because Hongbin believed that he would pass it. Then he thinks that Jaehwan's crying is because of him and he feels worse than what he already does.

"Would you promise me anything?" Hongbin asks.

"I'd promise you anything. Why?" 

"No reason."

Hongbin looks over at Jaehwan's desk and he notices that all of his notebooks are on the ground, most pages probably bent. He notices a little orange container too and he starts to freak out.

"What the hell…" Hongbin whispers as he starts to get up from the bed and he grabs the container from the desk. "What the hell, Jaehwan."

"What?" Jaehwan ask and he sits up as he opens his eyes.

"What the hell are these?" 

Jaehwan groans when he sees what Hongbin's holding. He rolls over onto his stomach and buries his head in his arms. Hongbin climbs onto the bed again and before he can say anything Jaehwan lifts his head up. "Don't say anything. Just don't. I know it's bad. I know I shouldn't do this to myself. I know, I know, I know, but I'm trying here, okay? I"m trying to hold on right now because I would have ended it for myself last night but I couldn't because it's you keeping me here. Just don't say anything to anyone, please?"

Hongbin nods his head and he lets the tears run down his cheeks as he lays there with Jaehwan. He can't leave, not even for a week. He can't.

 

 

 

Friday. Hongbin leaves in two days. Jaehwan didn't know if he wanted to spend the two days with him or not. Hongbin would decide for him though. 

Jaehwan sits by the window in his room and it's cold. It's raining in October when it should be snowing instead but Jaehwan doesn't really care. He pushes his chair away from the window and sits in front of his desk. Jaehwan counts.

Six lines carved into his desk. 14 lines cut into his skin. There's a paper towel with spots of dried blood on it and he never did move the keys off of the carpet. He picks up a pair of scissors and lifts the sleeve of his hoodie up. Cut or carve? Jaehwan hates when he thinks about Hongbin when he holds something sharp against his wrist and this time it causes him to pick carve instead of cut. 7 more lines and Jaehwan throws the pair of scissors across the room. They end up near his bed and he gets up to kick them under his bed. 

He can hear somebody walk up the steps as he climbs onto his bed. Jaehwan ignores the first couple of knocks on the door as he buries his head under a pillow. The knocks never stop. "What?" Jaehwan yells and he throws a pillow at the door. 

"Let me in." 

Jaehwan sighs as he gets up and unlocks the door for Hongbin. He cracks the door to make sure that no one else was with him and he notices that Hongbin was carrying a white bag.

"What's in the bag?"

"Let me in and you'll find out."

Jaehwan huffs as he opens the door and lets Hongbin in. Hongbin dumps the bag's content onto his bed as Jaehwan sits down and Jaehwan raises his eyebrows. There were two packs of markers and a ton of hard candy.

"What's this for?" Jaehwan asks as he reaches for one of the packs of hard candy and opens it, popping one in his mouth.

"Well, the markers are for when you want to cut and instead you can draw on your body. The candy is for when you want to take those," Hongbin points to the pills sitting on the desk and Jaehwan sighs as he closes his eyes and falls back on his bed, "but you can swallow some of these instead." Jaehwan bites down on the peice of candy in his mouth and he doesn't make a face when when he swallows it.

"Why are you doing this?" Jaehwan mutters after a while and he opens his eyes when Hongbin doesn't answer.

"Because I want you to promise me something..." Hongbin trails off as he moves to sit down next to Jaehwan.

Jaehwan hates how his heart beat speeds up when Hongbin reaches for his hand and he hates how he has to promise something to Hongbin.

"When I come back… you *have to be alive." Hongbin says and Jaehwan takes his hand away.

"What?" Jaehwan asks staring at Hongbin now.

"Jaehwan…"

"Repeat what you just said." Jaehwan says

"When I come back, I want you to still be here."

Jaehwan shakes his head. "No. I can't."

"Plea-"

"No! I won't promise you this! I-" Jaehwan's voice breaks and he doesn't finish his sentence.

Jaehwan shakes his head again and Hongbin bites his lip as he wipes away Jaehwan's tears. Jaehwan falls into Hongbin and Hongbin can't do anything but hold him as he cries. He is shaking and he hits Hongbin's chest a couple of times (which aren't pleasant for Hongbin at all). Hongbin holds Jaehwan's wrist to stop him from hitting his chest and Hongbin coughs a couple of times.

Hongbin holds Jaehwan until he's calmed down and Jaehwan tells him to leave when he sits up straight. "Leave!" Jaehwan yells when Hongbin doesn't move. Jaehwan closes his eyes and listens to Hongbin's footsteps. "I hate you." Is the last thing Hongbin hears Jaehwan say before he's gone.

 

 

 

One day left until Hongbin leaves for a whole week. Jaehwan sat outside in the front yard of his house, getting soaked from the pouring rain and thunder. Hongbin sent him an endless amount of text messages, the first few saying hey and then the rest showing that he was worried. Jaehwan never texted him back, making Hongbin even more worried.

11:52 a.m.  
From: Hongbin  
I'm coming over.

Jaehwan sniffled as he shoved his phone back into the soaking wet pocket on his sweat shirt. He didn't care and he didn't want to talk but Hongbin never seemed to get that about him. Jaehwan also ingorned his mother who was trying to get him to come back inside. He'd been sitting out there ever since it began raining at about 6 in the morning.

By the time Hongbin pulls into their driveway Jaehwan can't feel his fingers or his toes. It was probably very bad but Jaehwan just didn't care. Hongbin runs over to him and the warmth of Hongbin's hands on Jaehwan's freezing cheeks make Jaehwan shiver. 

"You're crazy!" Hongbin yells over the thunder and Jaehwan couldn't really haer anything else he was saying over the thunder.

Jaehwan finally moves his head to look at Hongbin when Hongbin sits down infront of him. He can see the pain on Hongbin's face when he sees that Jaehwan had been crying. Hongbin searches Jaehwan's face, noticing that there was no color anywhere. Jaehwan does nothing when Hongbin takes one of his freezing hands in one of his warm ones. He watches Hongbin shiver at how cold he felt. *You don't feel so cold after a while… it feels warm.

"You need to go inside!" Hongbin yells and Jaehwan shakes his head, refusing.

Jaehwan watches a tear roll down Hongbin's cheek as he leans closer. "Jaehwan, you are freezing. Can you even feel it?" He asks and Jaehwan shakes his head again and Hongbin begins to cry.

Jaehwan looks down at the ground and wipes his own tears away. *I hate myself.

"You can't stay out here."

"Yes I can. You can't make me go inside." Jaehwan argues and it makes him mad. He was perfectly fine outside.

"You don't get it, do you?" Hongbin asks and Jaehwan furrows his eyebrows. "You're freezing and it's a bad sign that you can't feel it. You have no color in your face, or anywhere really. You're going to hate yourself even more if you dont get inside right now." Hongbin says into Jaehwan's ear.

Hongbin stands up and tries to pull Jaehwan up to. "Don't touch me!" Jaehwan screams, staying put. He wasn't moving.

Hongbin sits back down in front of Jaehwan and Jaehwan doesn't feel anything when he sees Hongbin crying even harder than he was before. They sit there just looking at each otherr for a couple of minutes and Jehwan eventually looks away from Hongbin. They were both freezing and Hongbin could have left a while ago, but he didn't. He stayed with Jaehwan.

Jaehwan stil doesn't look at Hongbin even when he leans in. He knew Hongbin's lips were moving but Jaehwan couldn't hear a thing because of the thunder. It kind of catches him off guard when he feels Hongbin's lips against his. Hongbin's lips weren't warm and that's when Jaehwan began to worry about Hongbin. *You don't need to be getting anymore sick than you already are by sitting out here in the freezing cold rain with me.

Hongbin pulls away when Jaehwan doesn't kiss back and Jaehwan almost smirks at the surprise Hongbin expresses when he stands up. Hongbin walks him through the house and Jaehwan wonders how mad his mom would be from picking up all the water being tracked through the house. She's the one who wanted Jaehwan back inside anyways.

When they get up to Jaehwan's room, Jaehwan changes into dry clothes and give Hongbin some clothes too. Little by little, Hongbin notices the color coming back to Jaehwan and Jaehwan begins to feel warm again. 

"You're an idiot." Hongbin says as he dries Jaehwan's hair with a towel. 

"I know." Jaehwan mutters. *Wouldn't have changed my actions anyways.

Hongbin leaves after he was all dry and he gives Jaehwan a hug. He didn't let go of Jaehwan until Jaehwan actually hugged back, which took a while.

"I love you." Hongbin says and Jaehwan doesn't say anything back.

 

 

 

Jaehwan feels like crying and screaming when the first thing he sees when he wakes up is Hongbin. He groans as he slumps back down against his pillow. "Who let you in?"

"Your dad."

"Who let you in my room… I thought it was locked."

"It wasn't locked."

When Jaehwan sits up he reaches for his phone that was across the bed and checks the time. 7:13 a.m. *Who the hell wakes up at 7 in the morning? As he goes to lay back down he notices the pair of scissors and he groans as he pulls up his sleeve and counts. 15. He hopes Hongbin didn't notice the pair of scissors and he throws them under his bed, also hoping the Hongbin didn't see.

"Why did you wake me up at 7?" Jaehwan says after a while as he rests his head on Hongbin's shoulder and Hongbin rubs his back.

"Because I leave in an hour." 

Jaehwan likes the way Hongbin smells and he can't tell if it's from his clothes or his hair. "Do you want to know where I'm going?" Hongbin asks as Jaehwan pulls away and scoots over, allowing Hongbin to lay with him. 

"I want to wonder about some things." Jaehwan mumbles.

He doesn't do anything when Hongbin lays an arm over his waist. Half of the time Jaehwan layed there thinking that it felt nice and the other half of the time thinking it was wierd. Jaehwan almost fell asleep but before he could, he turned around so that he was facing Hongbin.

Jaehwan doesn't really listen when Hongbin says that he has 5 minutes until he has to leave but Jaehwan groans when Hongbin sits up. "Promise me?"

It takes Jaehwan a few seconds to find out what Hongbin was talking about and he looks up at Hongbin when he gets what Hongbin was asking. "No." Jaehwan shakes his head.

"Please?"

"Give me one good reason why I should stay." Jaehwan asks and he stares at his bed sheets.

"Your life."

Jaehwan shakes his head. *Not good enough.

"Me." Hongbin says and Jaehwan looks up at Hongbin. "Stay for me."

Jaehwan opens his mouth to reply after a while, tears were begining to collect in his eyes, but anything he could have said was cut off by Hongbin's mouth on his. Jaehwan hates how his lips quiver against Hongbin's and he hates how warm Hongbin feels. Jaehwan jerks his head away when he starts to like the kiss a little too much.

"I have to go…" Hongbin whispers after a while and Jaehwan bites his bottom lip until the door closes with a soft click. Jaehwan looks for anything to throw and he picks up a pack of markers, throwing it at the door. He closes his eyes and sighs, resting his head in his hands.

 

 

 

Jaehwan stared at an empty notebook as he sat in his intervention. He needed a new intervention, one that would actually help him. Jaehwan wrote the date at the top but other than that, the notebook stayed blank.

"Are you going to write anything?" Hakyeon leans over and asks Jaehwan.

Jaehwan shakes his head. He didn't know what to write about. *"Write about what's on your mind." The instructor said to him. There was nothing on his mind. Hongbin was gone and it's hard for him to accept.

So Jaehwan writes it over and over again. *Hongbin is gone, he isn't here. He's getting better help. He knows that Hakyeon was still watching him, knows that Hakyeon was probably reading what he was writing, but he didn't care. Maybe Hakyeon would help him. Or maybe he wouldn't, like everybody else.

*This is easy. Being here without Hongbin is easy. Jaehwan tells himself over and over again and he doesn't notice when he starts to write it.

He can see that Hakyeon wasn't looking anymore from the corner of his eye but he could see that somebody else was looking at him. When Jaehwan looks up his eyes go directly to Baekhyun. 

"Jaehwan." He looks over to a girl with long dark hair who sat next to Baekhyun, he never remembered her name but he knows that she's one of Baekhyun's friends. "Can you tell us about your depression?"

Jaehwan rolls his eyes and shakes his head. He really didn't want to talk, especially about his depression with someone he doesn't know. Actually, he doesn't know anything about anyone in this room except for the facts that Hakyeon goes to the same school as him and Baekhyun's always been mean to him.

"C'mon, not even about how you're tired of writing everyday… or how you cut your-"

"Stop, Jiyeon." Baekhyun says and Jaehwan furrows his eyebrows. 

Jaehwan sighs as he goes back to writing and he writes that he needs a new intervention group in capitalized letters so that maybe, just maybe, the stupid instructor will finally see that he needs the help that he can actually get from these meetings. He closes the notebook when the instructor says that the meeting was over and he gives it to the instructor. Jaehwan was one of the last people to leave like always but he thought it was weird when Hakyeon just sat there.

He waits by the door across the hall where Hongbin's intervention took place and he watched all of the people that came out of the room. None of them were Hongbin though. "Oh…" Jaehwan sighs when he realizes that Hongbin was actually gone. *This isn't easy.

Jaehwan skips up the stairs, two at a time, and he leaves the building. He sits outside leaning against the wall and he closes his eyes.

Somebody stopping catches his attention because he could hear the scuff of the person's shoe against the ground. "You go on, Jiyeon." Jaehwan hears and he groans mentally. He almost smirks when he hears Jiyeon scoff but he doesn't.

"You okay? Sorry about Jiyeon." Baekhyun asks and Jaehwan can feel him sitting down next to him.

"What do you think?"

"No…" Baekhyun trails off and he doesn't continue for a while. "Do you want a ride?"

Jaehwan shakes his head. His mom was one of the cars sitting in front of them but Baekhyun would never know that. "You can… go." Jaehwan says after a while.

"Right." Baekhyun says as he stands up and he leaves.

He watches Baekhyun getting yelled at by Jiyeon for a reason he probably knew and he wondered if they were *just friends. *I can't do this, Jaehwan thinks as he drops his head into his hands.

 

 

 

*Day 2 without him… Jaehwan thinks as he sits on his bed looking down at his hands. He had a choice, either the candy or the pills. He sets the candy beside him and opens the container of pills but instead of taking a couple he pours them on his bed. He takes the candy and pours it into the pill container and he ends up putting the pills in the candy box because he didn't want the pills on his bed.

Jaehwan still takes one or two of the pills along with some of the candy so that he couldn't taste the pills. He hears his phone go off and he pushes himself off the bed to stand up. Jaehwan walks over to his desk and he smiles when he sees it's Hongbin.

From: Hongbin  
Time: 4:23 p.m.  
Hey, how are you doing?

To: Hongbin  
Time: 4:29 p.m.  
I'm good I just left the intervention 

From: Hongbin  
Time: 4:31 p.m.  
Anything I've missed?

To: Hongbin  
Time: 4:33 p.m.  
Nope

Jaehwan stopped texting Hongbin because somebody wouldn't stop knocking on the door and it was starting to annoy Jaehwan. He almost slips going down the stairs because he has socks on but he doesn't take them off because he doesn't want whoever's at the door to see his feet. He has his hand on the door knob when he wishes that they had a little peep hole in the door so that they could see who was there. *I'm going to kill Hongbin if it's him.

Jaehwan doesn't do anything when he sees that it was Hakyeon. It grew awkward when nobody said anything for a while.

"Um… do you need something?" Jaehwan asks.

"I was just checking on you, you didn't come to the intervention today and you looked like you were going to kill someone the last time you were there."

"I'm fine."

"You don't really look like you're doing so well." Hakyeon points out.

"Oh I'm not but because I don't want to talk right now I'm just telling you that I'm fine." Jaehwan says with no emotion in his voice. He looks down at his feet and he wonders how horrible he must look.

"Sorry for bothering you… hope you have a better day today, Jaehwan." Hakyeon says and all Jaehwan does is nod his head. As he closes the door he can feel his eyes welling up with tears. Jaehwan sides his back down the door and hides his head in his arms as he cries. He can hear his phone ringing but he doesn't get up to get it.

*I'm not okay…

 

 

 

Jaehwan woke up at 4:30 a.m for a reason he didn't know but he couldn't go back to sleep so he sat up and turned on the lantern next to his bed. He looks around the room and the first thing he checks is the time, 4:37 a.m. Jaehwan throws his blankets off of him and gets dressed in what he usually wears. He doesn't really care about his hair, just runs his hair through it a couple of times as he slips on his shoes.

Before Jaehwan leaves he grabs his phone, keys, the can of spray paint, and the pill container of candy. He tries to leave the house making no sound so that his parent's wouldn't wake up and after closing the front door very carefully he runs to his car. He throws everything in his hands into the passenger seat. "Fuck!" Jaehwan yells as he accidentally throws his keys too. He struggles to get his keys into the ignition but once he gets it he leaves as quicky as he can in case his parent's woke up.

Jaehwan ends up pulling into one of those storied parking lots that no one used anymore after driving for a while. He parked his car on the third landing out of 5 right under a street lamp so that he could stay in his car without turning on the lights. He finds a couple of granola bars in his car and eats them along with the candy.

It was around 5:05 a.m when he gets out of the car. Stuffing his phone into his pocket, Jaehwan shakes the spray paint can. The sound it makes echos throughtout the entire building. Jaehwan walks over to one of the parking spots and makes a sad face. He also makes another one at the bottom of the staircase leading up and he continuously shakes the spray paint can until he thinks of what to paint next. He walks all the way up to the top landing, noticing that sun was starting to rise, and he stops walking when he thinks about something to paint.

In capital letters he wrote out, " I DONT EVEN KNOW WHY I'M STILL TRYING TO SURVIVE WHEN I'VE ALREADY LOST."

Jaehwan feels stupid when his throat starts to close up but he doesn't allow himself to cry. He walks away, to the stairs and he walks back to his car. Jaehwan grabs the container of candy and gets back up to the top landing. He sighs as he walks to one of the edges and sits down, feet hanging off, the containfer pops open but he closes it again. As he takes out his phone he sets down the container and opens his camera. Jaehwan takes a picture of the sun rise and sends it to Hongbin.

From: Hongbin  
5:23 a.m.  
Why are you up

To: Hongbin  
5:24 a.m.  
Couldn't sleep so I took an adventure… why are you up?

From: Hongbin  
5:27 a.m.  
Because I can't sleep either and I have an appointment in 2 hours

To: Hongbin  
5:29 a.m.  
Nervous?

From: Hongbin  
5:30 a.m.  
Yeah, kind of. Where are you anyways?

To: Hongbin  
5:33 a.m.  
This abandoned storied parking lot. I'm sitting at the top.

Jaehwan sighs when he doesn't get a text back for a while but he smiles slightly when his phone starts ringing. "Hey." Jaehwan says.

"Hey."

"Why'd you call?" Jaehwan asks as he pulls his hoodie tighter around him as the wind starts to pick up.

"I missed your voice." Hongbin says and Jaehwan can't help but notice how tired he is.

"Um.. is it morning where you are?"

"Yeah."

"Go watch the sun rise. We'll be watching the same sun rise even though were thousands of miles apart." Jaehwan says and he chuckles when he hears the rustling of the bed sheets as Hongbin gets up to look out the window.

They continue to talk for another half hour or so before Hongbin falls asleep on the phone. Jaehwan doesn't say anything when he hangs up. He cups his hands around his mouth to try to warm them and before he leaves he puts his phone and the container into his pocket, leaving the bottle of spray paint there because it was empty anyways. He almost falls asleep right when he sits in his car and he puts everything into the passenger seat. Jaehwan leans back and grabs the blanket from the back seat. "Never thought I'd use this." Jaehwan says as he wraps it around himself. Before he falls asleep he checks the time, 6:17 a.m.

 

He wakes up 30 minutes later and he's not even sure if he actually fell asleep. Jaehwan sits up and sighs when he checks the time on his phone. "Of course…" Jaehwan whispers as he grabs his keys from the passenger seat and puts them into the ignition. He leaves the building and decides that he was going to go to school today. Jaehwan drives around for a while until it's 7:15 because he didn't want to be at school early.

Jaehwan walks through the school doors with his bookbag right when the first bell rings and it's when he walks into the classroom that he decides he should have just stayed home, or in that parking lot. The teacher doesn't say anything about his absence yesterday and Jaehwan was glad that he didn't because he didn't want attention on him.

The first and second hours were hell but when he sits down at his desk in third hour it starts to get a bit better. 

"Hey. You made it today, Jaehwan." 

Jaehwan looks over at the boy sitting next to him and he notices that it was Daehyun. He doesn't say anything back because he really didn't feel like talking. Daehyun didn't make it awkward though because he kept talking although Jaehwan didn't say anything back.

"Are you alright?" Daehyun asks and Jaehwan's hesitant on his answer. He shakes his head. Daehyun doesn't talk to him anymore and Jaehwan wasn't sure if he liked that or not.

Nobody really noticed him in the halls and the teachers never said anything to him, only giving him the work that he needs to make up which wasn't a lot. 

In 8th hour every student got handed an envelope and the teacher explained that it was their test results. She said that they could open it in class if they wanted and as Jaehwan listened to every other student ripping open the envelope he just sat there staring at it. He didn't want to know if he passed or not. It was stupid that a test could mean everything, could lead your life. This one test could decide what college would want you but Jaehwan didn't care at that moment. The teacher didn't give them anything to do for the day so they sat there talking about their test results and it sounded like almost everyone passed. *Great, I'm the only one who didn't pass Jaehwan thinks as he puts the enevelope into the front pocket on his book bag.

 

Since Jaehwan went to school he decided to go to the interventions and Baekhyun was the only person in the room when he walks in. It was awkward sitting down because Baekhyun was looking at him but when the instructor walks in Baekhyun looks away. Jaehwan never gets up to get his notebook so the the instructor gets up and gives it to him, also giving Jaehwan a pencil to write with. 

*I miss Hongbin, Jaehwan writes and it was his only sentence for a while until more people came. It was weird writing before the intervention started. Jaehwan actually didn't start writing again and he was going to do homework for the rest of the time. When he opens his book bag he sees a torn up notebook. He pulls it out halfway only to shove it back into his bookbag because it was the old intervention notebook. He wasn't supposed to have it and he wasn't going to give it back to the instructor. Jaehwan ends up leaving 15 minutes before the intervention ended just because he felt like it.

Jaehwan's bookbag bounces against his back as he skips up the steps to the roof. He pushes the brick into the pathway of the door so that it wouldn't close.

He walks around for a bit, pulling his hoodie closer to his body as he pulls out his phone. Jaehwan tries to call Hongbin but it took him to voicemail. Jaehwan figured that Hongbin was in something important because his phone was never off.

Jaehwan eventually stops walking around at some point and he lays down on the roof. It was cold against his legs, very cold, but Jaehwan didn't mind feeling cold anymore. The clouds were gray, a few of them black, and he could already hear the thunder in the distance. He stays outside until the rain starts and it begins pouring down by the time he makes it back inside. He walks a bit slower down the stairs because he didn't want to fall down them.

Jaehwan runs to his car with his bookbag over his head so that he wouldn't get too wet. He chuckles as he tries to dig his hand into his pocket to grab his keys and he ends up just seting his bookbag on top of his car. Once he unlocks the car he throws his bookbag in the backseats and laughs as he puts on his seat belt. 

He doesn't know why, or how, but his laughing turns into crying at some point.

 

 

 

Jaehwan stares into a mirror, looking over his face. *This will pass, Jaehwan thinks as he rubs his eyes.

He turns off the light in the bathroom as he leaves and shuts his bedroom door behind him. Jaehwan kicks something as he walks to his bed bit he stops and looks at what he kicked. It was a pack of markers and he picks them up. He rips the package trying to open it but he doesn't really care. Sitting down on his bed, he dumps the markers out and picks a random color. Orange. He takes the cap off and draws a random line on his wrist. Jaehwan continues picking random colors and drawing random lines on his wrist. When he used every color at least twice he looks at it and sends a picture to Hongbin.

To: Hongbin  
10:37 a.m.  
This is stupid

From: Hongbin  
10:38 a.m.  
No it's not, it looks cool

Jaehwan sets his phone down and runs a hand through his hair. *Greasy. He leaves his room to take a shower and he hates how loud the water sounds. He washes his hair first and he puts his wrist under the stream of water. It stings because of the cuts but he watches the color run off. 

Jaehwan doesn't spend much more time in the shower and he just throws on what he was wearing before. His hair barely drips by the time he gets back in his room and he sits on the floor by his bed. Out of curiosity, Jaehwan looks under his bed to see how dirty it was. He finds a pile of notebooks and he cant tell how many there are so he pulls them out. Jaehwan lays them out in front of him and counts out seven. He flips through them, finding that only one of them was filled with drawings. Jaehwan opens the other six covers and looks at the dates at the top on the first page. 

*February 2013, August 2013, October 2013, July 2014, November 2014, January 2015.

Jaehwan feels his eyes water and his throat beginning to close up. *I don't remember any of this, Jaehwan thinks. With his shaky hands he messily gathers all of the notebooks and leaves them where they are on the floor.

Jaehwan doesn't like how his bottom lip begins to quiver as he lifts himself up from the ground and locks the door. He wipes his cheeks as he grabs the package of pills from his desk. He dumps some into his hand, not counting how many there were. Taking his phone from his bed he writes a message to Hongbin, "Sorry." As Jaehwan presses send he swallows the pills in his hand. He turns his phone off for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

Jaehwan has been laying on his bed in the same position all night and now most of the morning. He doesn't want to move because everything hurts. He almost jumps when his mom knocks on his door but he doesn't.

"I'm going to work, I'll be home around 7." 

When he hears the echo of the front door closing he slowly pushes up from his bed. His phone was going off throughout the night so he grabs it from the edge of his bed. The texts were all from Hongbin some of them asking what he did and the rest saying something along the lines that he was worried. Jaehwan sniffles as he sets his phone back where it was. 

He trys to not cry as he unlocks the door to his bedroom but he begins to cry as he walks into the bathroom. He hears his phone go off again but he doesn't go back to check it. Jaehwan sits down on the bathroom floor until he feels like standing up again. He looks through the cabinet under the sink and he finds an old mirror siting in the back. Pulling the mirror out carefully, Jaehwan sets it down and closes the cabinet doors. 

Jaehwan props it against his knees, the bottom of it digging into his stomach, and stares at his reflection. He fixes his hair a bit but other than that he doesn't do anything else. Jaehwan wonders how and why he got to this point in his life, where he doesn't want to live anymore. His parents are part of the reason but that's all he *really understands. He sniffles again as he wipes away some of his tears.

With his shaky hands and blurry vision, Jaehwan lifts the mirror up and throws it against the wall off to his left. The mirror shatters into little peices, most of them landing next to him. *It's tempting.

Jaehwan reaches over and grabs a random peice of the random glass. He wasn't going to hurt himself with it but when the bathroom door opens suddenly he squeezes it. It leaves a small slash across the palm of his right hand. He doesn't look to see who opened the door but when Jaehwan feels somene trying to grab him he panics.

~~~

Jaehwan scowls at the doctor sitting infront of him, showing him cards and asking him what he saw.

"This?" The doctor asks.

"A wolf." Jaehwan says.

He knew he was in a hospital but other than that he had no idea where he was. After Jaehwan was done being questioned, the doctor takes him into a room. Jaehwan looks around and he scowls again when the door shuts and he hears a lock.

"I'm in a prison… except in a hospital." Jaehwan mutters to himself.

After a while Jaehwan realizes that he has to pee. He tries asking the lady blocking the door but either she cant hear him or she wont let him leave. Jaehwan sighs as he walks over to the bed and plops down. He decides to lay down and close his eyes.

About 30 minutes later Jaehwan wakes up because he hears talking outside of the door. Instantly, the exhaustion he has vanishes when he hears the lock click. He doesn't sit up but when the door closes and he hears that someone else was in the room, he sits up. His face stays blank when he sees Hongbin.

"I… thought you were asleep." Hongbin says and he still stands by the door, like he's afraid to come near Jaehwan.

Jaehwan shakes his head and as he looks down at his palms he swings his legs off of the side of the bed. There is a red line across one of his palms and it really hurts. When Jaehwan looks up again he can tell that Hongbin feels uncomfortable.

"How'd you get in here? They wont even let me go pee." Jaehwan says and Hongbin shrugs his shoulders. 

As Hongbin walks closer Jaehwan sees that one of his hands had a bandage wrapped around his palm. "Did I do that to you?" Jaehwan asks as he looks up, his eyes turning a bit red as they water. A tear falls down Jaehwan's cheek as Hongbin nods his head and Jaehwan begins crying messily. He runs his hands through his hair a couple of times.

"I-I didn't, I wasn't trying to kill myself-"

"I trusted you." Hongbin cuts Jaehwan off and Jaehwan shakes his head and he wipes his tears away. 

"I never promised you." 

"That doesn't matter!" Hongbin yells but the way he reacts after tells Jaehwan that he was sorry, he didn't mean to yell at him.

"I know it's hard for you right now." Hongbin says as he walks closer and stands in front of Jaehwan. "But it's still hard for me and I need you to fight through this. It sounds selfish, and it is, but I wouldn't be able to help myself if you ended your life and I wasn't there to help you."

Jaehwan doesn't say anything, only looks up at Hongbin. Hongbin brings Jaehwan into a hug and Jaehwan wraps his arms around Hongbin's waist. "You scared me so fucking much, Jaehwan." Hongbin whispers.

Jaehwan opens his mouth to say sorry but Hongbin tells him that he doesn't have to. He cries into Hongbin's chest as he brings Hongbin closer to him. "I love you." Hongbin says.

 

 

 

The next day Hongbin comes back and he finds Jaehwan on his phone, which Hongbin brought to him yersterday. "Oh, hey." Jaehwan says when Hongbin walks closer and sits down by Jaehwan's knees.

"Hi." Hongbin says as Jaehwan sits up. Jaehwan doesn't say anything for a while as he watches Hongbin ook around the room.

"There's not much in here." Jaehwan says, catching Hongbin's attention. Hongbin smiles when he looks at Jaehwan but it fades away when he sees the worried look on his face. "Does my mom know?" Jaehwan asks. 

Hongbin nods his head. "I know what you mean now when you said your parents didn't care."

"It sucks." Jaehwan mutters as he was reaching for Hongbin's hand as he scoots closer. 

Hongbin looks down as he plays with Jaehwan's fingers and Jaehwan takes a deep breath. Hongbin's hair falls in front of his eyes and Jaehwan smiles. *You need a hair cut. Jaehwan takes his hand away and places it on Hongbin's cheek, lifting his head up. Jaehwan leans in as he closes his eyes and he's hesitant to connect his lips to Hongbin's, Hongbin leaning in to do it.

When Hongbin breaks away he pulls a peice of folded paper out of his jacket.

"What's that?" Jaehwan asks, looking down at his hands.

"Your test results," Hongbin pauses. "You passed, Jae." 

Jaehwan doesn't do anything except look up and take the paper from Hongbin. "It was a stupid test anyways." Jaehwan says as he crumbles up the paper and throws it on the floor. "It wasn't even a big deal." He mutters.

Hongbin opens his mouth to say something but Jaehwan interrupts him, saying that he doesn't want to argue again.

 

 

 

Jaehwan's mother picked him up the next morning. She didn't say anything while in the car and Jaehwan looked out of the window the whole time. Most of the leaves had already fallen from the trees but there were some leaves that were just beginning to change color. The wind was heavy and there were gray clouds to match. Jaehwan thinks there are going to sirens going off later.

When they pul into the driveway of their house Jaehwan looks over at his mother and sees that she was crying. Jaehwan leaves the car, shutting the door softly, he walks with his head down until he reaches the front door, also closing this door softly behind him. He runs up to his room and lays down on his bed. Puking his phone from his pockets he opens the messages.

10:14 a.m.  
To: Hongbin  
It feels good to be home.

10:17 a.m.  
From: Hongbin  
Did your mom pick you up?

10:18 a.m.  
To: Hongbin  
Yea…

They continue to text eachother until JAehwan tells Hongbin to take a nap because he wants to do something fun with Hongbbin tonight. Awhile after texting Hongbin, Jaehwan falls asleep.  
~~~~  
Jaehwan wakes up arounnd 7 p.m, not texting Hongbin til 8. Jaehwan throws on his shoes on and an extra jacket over his hoodie before grabbing his phone and car keys. He leaves without his mother knowing and he drives to Hongbin's house to pick him up, sending Hongbin a text to let him know that Jaehwan was waiting outside of his house.

Hongbin walks out of his house and Jaehwan watches him close te door quietly. He takes his time walking to the car and Jaehwan was fine with it, Hongbin's hair blows in the wind and Jaehwan wonders if it would rain tonight.

Jaehwan doesn't say anything to Hongbin and he drives slowly as Hongbin gets his seat belt on. Jaehwan drives to the building where their interventions were held and he parks the car there. "Hope you got a good nap." Jaehwan says to Hongbin as they climb out of the car.

"Why?" Hongbin asks.

"Were staying out all night."

"Hm."

Hongbin still has no idea what they were doing but they were walking away from the car along the sidewalk. When they were a good distance from the car Hongbin stops walking. "I left my inhaler in the car… wait here and I'll go get it real quick." Hongbin says and Jaehwan nods his head.

Jaehwan watches Hongbin leave and he notices that his inhaler was in the back pocket of his jeans. Jaehwan thought about runnning over to him but he was too far away. He begins to count the stars in the night sky while waiting for Hongbin. When Hongbin comes back Jaehwan counted 122 stars in the sky.

They walk across the street and Jaehwan intertwines Hongbin's fingers with his as they walk. Walking into the woods, Hongbin uses his inhaler and squeezes Jaehwan's hand.

"Where are we goinng anyways?" Hongbin asks as he slows down his breathing, putting his inhaler back in his pocket.

"You'll find out soon." Jaehwan says and he smiles when Hongbin sighs.

They continue walking for about another 10 minutes before they come up to "their" tree. "Here." Jaehwan says and hen he turns around, Hongbin looks worried or scared even. One of his hands were shaking and his eyes were filling with water. "You okay?"

"Yeah… I'm fine." Hongbin mutters.

"Then what's wrong?"

"It's about my condition… do you really want to know right now?" Hongbin asks and Jaehwan shakes his head.

After kissing Hongbin's cheek Jaehwan walks over to the tree and grabs onto the tree branch. "Lets have some fun." Jaehwan says as he lifts himself onto the branch. Before continuing to climb up he grabs Hongbin's hand and helps him onto the same branch.

The both continue to climb higher and higher until they reach a branch that both of them could sit on. Hongibn's hands were still shaking even after sitting there for a couple of minutes and Jaehwan couldn't help but to look at his hands. *It must be serious then. To hopefully calm down Hongbin a bit, Jaehwan takes one of Hongbin's shaking hands in his. Hongbin lays his head on Jaehwan's shoulder and tries to take deep breaths to steady his breathing.

Hongbin begins picking the red and orange leaves from the tree. "It's so… pretty up here." He says through his staggered beathing.

"Amen." Jaehwan whispers.

The sun went down about thirty minutes ago but it was just now starting to get dark. Hongbin's breathing hadn't gotten any better so he takes his had from Jaehwan's, trying to pull his inhaler from his back pocket without dropping it. When he brings it to the front of his body it was his shaking hands that caused him to frop the inhaler. "Shit, shit, shit…" Hongbin mutter under his breat as struggles to find something to grab. He eventually grabs onto random places on his shirt, tugging and pulling at the fabric. 

Jaehwan begins to get scared because he had no idea how to help Hongbin. He had never been in a situation like this before. "Try holding your breath?" Jaehwan suggests. Hongbin also sturggles with this and Jaehwan can feel his heart break when Hongbin looks at him for help. Jaehwan thinks of other ways a person holds their breath. *A kiss.

Jaehwan's eyes search Hongbin's face and Jaehwan feels his throat close up as he continues to wait, but he doesn't know what he's waiting for. Jaehwan quickly connects his lips to Hongbins and he feels hongbin hold his breath. Their lips dont move for a while and Jaehwan tihnks its crazy how he an feel the tension escape from Hongbin. After a few more seconds Hongbin breaks away and pushes his forehead against Jaehwan's, his breathing back to a steady pulse. "You scared me." Jaehwan whispers and ihs bottom lip quivers.

"I-!'m sorry…"

"Dont be." Jaehwan says. "Do you want to lea-"

"No." Hongbin interrupts Jaehwan. "Not yet."

Hongbin and Jaehwan stay up therre until 9:15, when the thinder begins to rumble lightly. They try to look for Hongbin's inaler but Hongbin said that he has an extra one in his bedroom. Jaehwan trusts Hongbin on it and they start making their way back to the car.

The crunching of the leaves sounded unrealistic as they walked along. Hongbin cups his hands and brings them to his mouth, blowing hot air and rubbing his hands together. "You cold?" Jaehwan asks.

Hongbin nods his head. "Very."

Jaehwan holds one of Hongbin's hands in one of his until they reach the car. Hongbin quickly jumps into the passenger side of the car and Jaehwan gives him the blanket that was sitting in the back seat. Jaehwan also turns on the heat.

They drive around randomly withh one of Jaehwan's CD's playing quietly. Hongbin leans over and turns it up, not asking who it was but he starts singing along. *You must know them too.

Jaehwan eventually turns into an empty parking lot and starts going in loose circles to mess with Hongbin. Hongbin laughs like an idiot whoch causes Jaehwan to laugh along too.

It seemed like just them on the road drrving this late at night, and they really were the only ones so far. They kept loosiing track of time but they had all the time they needed with a full tank of gas. The two of them both agreed to stop at a 24-hour shop toget some food. Hongbin got them both a water bottle and Jaehwan got a package of donuts.

They et the donuts in the car, still in the parking lot. Jaehwan watches two other people role into the parking lot. When they were full and most of the donuts were gone Jaehwan pulls out of the parking lot.

He ends up driving to a little shore. Jaehwan didn't know where it was or what it was near, he only knew it was there.

"Before we get out… do you want to hear about my condition?" Hongbin asks and Jaehwan nods his head. Hongbin takes a deep breath before continuing. "Um… my condition a downward spiral at this point and they say I won't live to see the new year, or the begining of December even."

"What? Who said that?" Jaehwan begins to raise his voice and Hongbin takes off the blanket.

"The doctors." 

"Why would th-"

"Hey, hey, hey... calm down." Hongbin says as he climbs over the seat divider and sits in Jaehwan's lap.

Jaehwan's hands go directly to Hongbin's hip instantly and he rests his head on Hongbin's chest.

"It'll be okay… I'll be alright." Hognbin whispers as he runs his hands through Jaehwan's hair.

They stay in the car for another 15 minutes and when they decidedd to get out it was a bit harder for Hongbin because he had limited space. Jaehwan grbs the blanket and shoves his car keys into a pocket on his jeans, closing the door. He covers both himself and Hongbin with the blanket as they walk together. The only light they had was the light from the moon and the stars.

The sand was cold when they sat down but they didn't really mind it. "What time is it?" Hongbin asks.

"3:57." Jaehwn says and he puls the blanket over the both of them, also putting his arm around Hongbin's waist.

"I can't wait for the sun to rise." Hongbin says.

The sun didn't begin to rise until 7:03. Hongbin and Jaehwan were kicking water at each other, their pants rolled up and shoes taken off. The water was cold at first, very cold, but their feet got used to it quickly. When they saw the first signs of the sun rising they stopped what they were doing to watch it.They stood there holding each other's hands as they watched the sun rise.

When the sun was almost done rising Jaehwan pulls Hongbin away from the water. Smiling, he lifts Hongbin onto his back and begins to run to the blanket and their shoes. Hongbin bounces up and down against Jaehwan's back. He chuckled into Jaehwan's ear and snuggled his head into the crook of Jaehwan's neck. When Jaehwan slows down to a walk Hongbin lifts his head back up.

As Jaehwan kept walking further and futher he felt Hongbin lay kisses on his neck, sending shivers down Jaehwan's spine. Jaehwan smiles and lifts Hongbin further up onto his back to make sure that he wouldn't drop Hongbin.

Jaehwan lets Hngbin off his back and they walk the rest of the way to the banket. Once they have their shoes on Jaehwan kisses Hongbin while they were still sitting on the ground. Jaehwan begins to break away but Hongbin pulls him back in. They kiss for a couple of seconds and once they break away Hongbin grabs the blanket, throwing it over himself as they make their way to the car.

Jaehwan holds Hongbin's hand and they walk slow. "Hey Hongbin…" Jaehwan trails off. 

"Hm?"

"I love you to the moon and back." Jaehwan says. He didn't expect Hongbin to say it back but he did say a simple 'I love you too' back. Jaehwan was fine with it.

When they get back to the car Hongbin yawns as he opens his car door and sits down. "Tired?" Jaehwan asks as he starts the car, immediatley turning on the heat. Hongbin nods his head. "Very."

While driving to his house, Jaehwan notices that Hongbin fell asleep. Jaehwan drives slower around the bumps and holes in the ground so he doesn't wake Hongbin up.

Jaehwan wakes Hongbin up when they get to Jaehwan's house. They both go up to Jaehwan's room and end up sleeping for the rest of the morning.

 

 

 

Jaehwan doesn't see Hongbin again until the first Saturday of November and he's not really sure why. Hongbin told him that he got sick with something and that he didn't want to get Jaehwan sick. Ever since hearing Hongbin say that he was sick, Jaehwan has had a dark cloud floating above is head that was making him feel quilty for some reason that he didn't know. Jaehwan listened to Hongbin but since he missed Hongbin so much he decided on going to see him. Before leaving to go anywhere he texts Hongbin to make sure he was alone.

5:37 p.m.  
To: Hongbin  
I'm bringing pizza over to our house and were going to hang out

5:38 p.m.  
From: Hongbin  
But I'm still sick

5:30 p.m.  
To: Hongbin  
I don't care, I miss you so much

~~

When Jaehwan gets to Hongbin's house he leaves the pizza in the car. He sees Hongbin standing with the front door open for him and he notices that Hongbin looked confused when he didn't have pizza. "I thought you were bringing food!" Hongbin yells loud enough for Jaehwan to hear as he runs over. 

Jaehwan runs by and grabs Hongbin's hand, pulling him away from the front door of his house and the door slams shut. Hongbin yells that he was still sick and that it was too cold for him to be outside without proper clothes on. Jaehwan chuckles as he picks up a pile of leaves and throws it at Hongbin, Hongbin yelling at him again as Jaehwan runs away. Sniffling, Hongbin quickly picks up a bigger pile of leaves and chases after Jaehwan, throwing the leaves at him when Jaehwan was close enough.

"I hate you." Hongbin says as he stops running and walks over to where Jaehwan was standing. Jaehwan brings Hongbin into a hug and Hongbin catches his breath. Hongbin looks up and kisses Jaehwan's cheek, Jaehwan returning a kiss to Hongbin's cheek too.

While they were just standing there, hugging each other, snow began to fall. _First snow fall of November._

"Can go inside now?" Hongbin asks, not even caring about the fact that it was snowing.

"Yeah." Jaehwan says and as he goes to his car to grab the pizza Hongbin walks over to the front door to hold it open for Jaehwan. 

Jaehwan walks into Hongbin's house and Jaehwan didn't notice how bad Hongbin looked until they were in actual lighting since it was pretty dark outside already. "You look like death." Jaehwan says as Hongbin takes the pizza and walks to one of the couches in the room, Jaehwan following.

"I feel like death." Hongbin says, setting the pizza down on the coffee table in front of them and taking a peice of pizza. Hongbin goes back to watching the movie that was currently playing. Jaehwan didn't bother to ask what movie it was.

About at the halfway mark in the movie Hongbin leaves to go to the bathroom. While he was gone Jaehwan noticed that he only ate one peice of pizza. _He must be really sick._

When Hongbin comes back he lays down with his head in Jaehwan's lap. "I hate being this sick." Hongbin says as Jaehwan begins to play with his hair. "Can't eat anything without throwing up. I've brushed my teeth at least 7 times today, 8 now."

A while later Jaehwan could tell that Hongbin was about to fall asleep in the position he was in and Jaewan wanted him to because Hongbin needs a lot of sleep. Instead of drifting off to sleep Hongbin sits up and opens his eyes. He looks over at Jaehwan worriedly and Jaehwan noticed that Hongbin's eyes were turning red. "Maybe the doctors really were right." Hongbin mutters, not wanting his voice to break if he used it.

"Hey… don't say that Hongbin." Jaehwan says as he watches Hongbin's eyes well up with water, some of it spilling down his cheeks.

"They were right… they were right…." Hongbin reapeats over and over again until Jaehwan pulls him into a hug.

"No they weren't. You'll be alright, just like you said you would." Jaehwan whispers. He bites his tongue to keep himself from crying because Hongbin would only cry harder if he saw Jaehwan crying. "You'll be just- fine." His voice cracks.

"I'm scared." Hongbin says and his voice was very shaky.

"I'll be with you every step of the way. There's nothing to worry about because you're fine."

Hongbin's tears soak one of the shoulder's of Jaehwan's shirt and Hongbin eventually calms down enough to the point where he stops shaking. His breathing was still a bit unsteady though.

"I think I left something in your car… can I go get it?" Hongbin asks and Jaehwan nods his head. They both walk to the front door, Jaehwan telling him that he'd be in his room when he was done getting what ever he needed.

Jaehwan was surprised when he finds how clean Hongbin's room was now than the time he last saw it. He lays down on his stomach on Hongbin's bed, using his arms for extra support for his head along with the pillows.

Jaehwan smiles when he hears Hongbin's footsteps coming down the stairs. "Did you find what you needed back?" Jaehwan asks. He hears Hongbin sniffle and he turns onto his back. Jaehwan watches Hongbin wipe his cheeks. "Yeah." Jaehwan could tell that Hongbin had been crying by the way his voice sounds.

Hongbin walks over to where Jaehwan was laying on the bed and lays down on top of Jaehwan's body. Jaehwan wraps his arms around Hongbin's body.

They lay their for a couple of minutes in complete silence. Jaehwan was half awake when Hongbin sits up, his thighs on either side of Jaehwan's body. He opens his eyes when Hongbin doesn't move. Jaehwan smiles when he hears Hongbin's little laugh. "What's funny?" Jaehwan asks.

"Nothing." Hongbin says. "I love you."

"I love you too." Jaehwan says, pulling Hongbin down for a kiss.

Hongbin kisses back at first but he pulls away quickly. "I'm sick you asshole!" Hongbin says playfully.

"I know. And I don't care." Jaehwan tries to pull Hongbin back down but Hongbin doesn't move. Hongbin shakes his head and he smiles when Jaehwan pulls himself up. 

Jaehwan knows, somehow, where Hongbin was ticklish and he can't help but to laugh as Hongbin tries to smack his hands away from his sides. He watches Hongbin try to wiggle out of his hands and Hongbin eventually gets Jaehwan's hands off of him. When they stop and it was silent in the room again, Jaehwan could hear how uneven Hongbin's breathing was. Still sitting on top of Jaehwan, Hongbin grabs one of his hands and brings it to his chest. Jaehwan raises his eyebrows when he feels the very uneven and unsteady beat of Hongbin's heart. It was scary and he wondered how it felt to Hongbin. 

Hongbin leans over and opens the drawer on the nightstand next to the bed, grabbing his extra inhaler. Jaehwan doesn't watch as Hongbin uses it.

For the rest of the time that they were hanging out Jaehwan was trying to get Hongbin to go to sleep. Hongbin held onto the fabric of his shirt that was laying over where his heart was. He also furrowed his eyebrows together sometimes and Jaehwan wondered if he was in pain.

When Hongbin finally falls asleep at about 10 Jaehwan stands up and before he leaves he kisses Hongbin's cheek. As he was walking out the the driveway he runs into Hongbin's mother who was walking up to the front door. "Hey Jaehwan. Is he alseep?" She asks.

"Yeah." Jaehwan says.

"Thank you. Have a good night."

"You too."

Jaehwan climbs into his car and as he drives away he doesn't notice the new addition to his car.

~~~

Later that night Hongbin was laying in his bed, trying to go to sleep. As he drifted off to sleep he noticed that it was getting a bit harder to breathe. He used his inhaler a couple of times before he actually fell asleep.

Eventually, at about 2 in the morning, he was woken up by a harsh pain in his chest. He gasped for air and for a few seconds he couldn't use his voice but he screamed as loud as he could, hoping his parent's would hear him. His gasps for air were very small and his screams were a bit quiet but his parents came running down into his room, turning on the light and running over to Hongbin. His mother held his hand and Hongbin squeezed, also clenching the bed sheets.

Hongbin's father helped him stand up, both of his parent's supporting him as he walked. He was still gasping for air as he sat in the back of their car with his mother rubbing his back to help soothe him. It did anything but that.

When they arrived at the hospital Hongbin's mother and him got out of the car as doctor's came running out to take Hongbin. His parents were told to wait in the hallway when they caught up with them.

Hongbin's mother cried into her hands as her hisband hugged her, rubbing her back. "He'll be alright… just like he always said he would." He whipered.

After 10 minutes and still no news from the doctor's Hongbin's parents knew it was bad. His mother takes a seat as she pulls out Hongbin's phone that she grabbed before they left and she calls Jaehwan. She hoped that he would answer.

 

 

 

Jaehwan wakes up at 2:45 a.m from his phone going off for a reason he didn't know. The caller ID read Hongbin. 

"Hello?" Jaehwan asks, sleep evident in his voice.

"Hi, Jaehwan, it's Hongbin's mother." She takes a break and Jaehwan already knows what happened. "Hongbin's just been taken to the hospital… you can come wait with us if you'd like."

"Okay. Thank you. I-I'm on my way." Jaehwan says quickly as he throws on shoes and grabs everything he needs. He rushes out to his car and quickly dives to the hospital.

When he arrives at the hospital he has to keep telling himself to stay calm. He bites his tongue as he walks in and he instantly sees Hongbin's parents. He gives the both a hug, knowing it was harder for them that anyone else who knew Hongbin.

"Still no news about him." Hongbin's father informs Jaehwan and Jaehwan checks the time, 3:13 a.m. "It's been over 25 minutes." He continues.

"All we can do is wait now." Jaehwan says.

While they were sitting there Jaehwan noticed that both of Hongbin's parents had their heads bowed and hands together. Jaehwan joins in to show his respect. Hongbin's parents don't ask him to say anything but after listening to them, he kind of wanted to. They told him to say what was on his mind and so he did.

When Jaehwan finishes they see a doctor walking towards them. The doctor asks for the parents and those three step aside.

Jaehwan doesn't look over at them to try to see what was going on with Hongbin. It wasn't his business right now. _Would I even want to know?_

When Hongbin's parents comeback after 15 minutes or so, Jaehwan would never know what had happened or what the doctor had said. Jaehwan doesn't ask for Hongbin's parents to tell him anything but he does let the information that his parents already gave him sink in. Hongbin was unconsious and he was sturggling to breath on his own. They could go up to his room when the doctors came back to show them where to go.

They all waited paitently for the doctor to come back. It was 3:47 when he did. Jaehwan doesn't pay much attention to anything but the beat of his heart as they follow the doctor. _Please be alive… please be alive…_

When they find the room, 403, the doctor explains that there should only be one person in the room at a time. He pulls the mother aside for a second and Jaehwan watches her give some papers to the doctor. Hongbin's mother was the first to go in the room, both Jaehwan and the dad taking seats outside of the room.

When Hongbin's mother comes out, his dad going in next, Jaehwan notices that her eyes were red. She was crying. Jaehwan didn't blame her, it was an emotional night.

A while after sitting there Jaehwan opens his mouth to ask something but before he even gets the chance to say a word Hongbin's mother interrupts him. "You want to know about the papers, don't you?"

"Yeah." Jaehwan whispers.

"Ever since Hongbin turned 16, the last time he was in the hospital like this, we thought it was the end. We signed the papers that said that the doctors couldn't help him to stay alive if he was leaving. It was what he wanted" His mother says. "I remember it being the same way then as it is now and it's scary to think about it."

"Why couldn''t he get a heart transplant?" Jaehwan asks.

"He never wanted it. He never told anyone that but I caught on to what he was doing. He would always pass the heart on to someone else even though he was the one who needed it the most."

"I learned that he's a fighter, he doesn't like to give up." Jaehwan says and that's when she breaks. 

She chuckles as some tears run down her cheeks. "That's my boy." She says, wiping away her tears. Jaehwan can see how proud she was of him.

A few minutes later the father walks out and smiles at the two of them as they both stand up. Before Jaehwan enters the room Hongbin's parents inform him that they were going to get them all coffee and that they wouldn't interrupt Jaehwan if he was still in there by the time they got back.

Jaehwan thanks them before he walks into the room. Instantly he sees Hongbin laying on the bed peacefully. As he walks closer he can feel his mouth become dry and his throat starting to close up. Jaehwan sits in the chair already pulled up to the bed. He notices that there was no big tube helping Hongbin to breathe. He listens to Hongbin's struggle for his breath and he holds Hongbin's hand. It wasn't cold, but there was no movement like him squeezing Jaehwan's hand back. Jaehwan's inhales and exhales of air were very shaky.

"H-hey." Jaehwan says and he hates how he stutters. "I know you're still here… that monitor hasn't started beeping and its not turned off yet. That- it's a good thing" Tears begin to form and some run down his cheeks.

Jaehwan tries to steady his breathing for a couple of seconds before continuing. "You might be unconsious but it's still you, it's the same Hongbin I've always known. You're amazing Hongbin, you really are. Those holes in your heart have been bothering you ever since you were 13. _Thirteen._ You were still growing up. You've been fighting for 5 years and you haven't given up once. I've been dealing with my depression for a little over a year now and I've already given up. But you brought me back. I don't want to give up now." Jaehwan pauses and wipes away some of his tears. "Your- mom told me that you refused hearts that were meant for you. Why? Those were your chances to get better but you ignored them. It shows how brave you are but- I-I don't think anyone else would ever let their kids do that. Your parents… they- they have supported you in everything that you have done. You taught me so many things in such a short time."

Jaehwan stops talking or a while until he finds what to say to Hongbin. "You know, I've had this feeling in my gut ever since we stopped seeing each other for 4 weeks. It's guilt. If I wouldn't have kept you out all night in the cold you wouldn't have gotten sick and we wouldn't be sitting here right now." Jaehwan doesn't say anything for a while, his mind running blank. He smiles when he thinks of what to say. "You're my best friend and I hate too see you struggle. I know you've probably heard your parents say this a thousand of times already but it's alright to let go. You're in so much pain, I can see it written all over your body. Nobody will be mad at you. Let- let go, give up. It's al-right n-now." Jaehwan begins to cry uncontrollably but he keeps it down because he doesn't want to wake Hongbin up. "I love you so much Hongbin." Jaehwan says, kissing the top of Hongbin's hand. He stands up to kiss Hongbin's forehead, also kissing his cheek. _The last time I'll ever see you in pain…._

Jaehwan cries as he leaves the room, shutting the door behind him quietly so that he doesn't disturb Hongbin. When he sees Hongbin's parents sitting in the chairs he only cries harder. They stand up quickly and walk over to him.

"Did you tell him it was okay for him to let go too?" Hongbin's mother asks as they both give Jaehwan a hug together and Jaehwan nods his head. "Thank you so- much Jaehwan. You kept him so happy. He loves you so much." She says as she rubs Hongbin's back.

A couple minutes later they hear the monitor begin beeping and they all smiled through their tears. He heard them talking to him.

"That's it… h-he's gone." Jaehwan says.

"He's happy now." Hongbin's father says.

The three of them barely hear when the beeping shuts off. The nurses that walked out of the room also quietly shut the door and they didn't say anything to the three of them.

Soon after they have their coffee in hand the doctor comes up to them. He leads them into the room and it was like he knew all of the right things to say to them in this situation. The doctor takes the parents out of the room and Jaehwan sits on the bed with Hongbin. He runs his fingers over Hongbin's cheek and he feels cold now. There was still color in his face though.

"Have fun up there." Jaehwan whispers.

Jaehwan realizes in the time that they were gone that it wasn't the darkness that he lost himself in all those nights ago but it was the silence. The silence was what tore his mind open and let his thoughts run wild.

Jaehwan looks away from the ground when he hears the soft click of the door open. He feels relief when he doesn't see the doctor again. "Were staying here as long as we can with Hongbin if you'd like to be with us." Hongbin's parents say and Jaehwan nods his head.

~~~~~

Later that day, when Jaehwan was trying to go to sleep at aroung 10 p.m, he couldn't stop thinking about Hongbin. He eventually falls asleep somehow but he didn't get a full night's sleep like usual.

 

 

 

The interventions were probably one of he hardest parts of Jaehwan's day. It would take him a while to get used to not walking up the stairs with Hongbin. 

He walked late into his intervention on Monday, everybody loooking at him as he walked to his seat. "What?" Jaehwan asks out of complete annoyance. They all looked so sorry, like they felt bad for Jaehwan. Beakhyun especially. It mad him mad because he had no idea why.

The actual intervention didn't begin for a couple more minutes. Jaehwan was staring at the ground the whole time, even when the instructor stood up.

"Yesterday morning," Jaehwan looks up at the instructor with wide eyes as everybody looks at him, "we lost a very special person. His name was Lee Hongbin."

Jaehwan feels a stray tear run down his cheek and he quickly wipes it away. He looks back down at the ground, eventually closing his eyes. _I hate this stupid intervention._

Jaehwan hated how everyone was still watching him. When his crying starts to pick up he leaves the room. They weren't doing anything anyways.

He sits outside of the intervention room and he's 100 percent sure that everyone in this hallway could hear him crying. He doesn't care though. Jaehwan burries his head in his knees, shaking and tapping his feet uncontrollably. He hated everything and everyone in the building. _Of course the instructor had to bring this up._

Jaehwan hears someone come out of his intervention and he doesn't look up, hoping it wasn't Baekhyun or the instructor. He looks at the person when they lift him up so that they were both standing. With his bottom lip quivering and tears running down his cheek, Jaehwan looks right into Hakyeon's eyes. Jaehwan instantly wraps his arms around Hakyeon's shoulder and burries his head into Hakyeon's shoulders. Hakyeon holds onto Jaehwan, rubbing his back.

"H-he… he…" Jaehwan tries to say something but Hakyeon shushes him.

When Jaehwan calms down some he decides to try talking again, still not letting go of Hakyeon. "He… he never got the chance to tell me goodbye…" Jaehwan barely fnishes the sentence without bursting into more tears and Hakyeon doesn't know what to do.

"I did it… I d-did it. I'm the o-ne who m-made him si-ck." Jaehwan says and Hakyeon pulls him away so that they were looking at each other.

"Don't take the blame for his death Jaehwan. He was sick ever since he was thirteen.

"I- know…" Jaehwan whispers and Hakyeon wipes away his tears for him.

They walk around the building until Jaehwan stops crying, ending up on the roof.

"Hongbin loves it up here." Jaehwan tells Hakyeon as they sit on the edge of the roof together. It was snowing lightly and they weren't really that cold.

"I bet… it's beautiful up here." Hakyeon says.

"You know, the first time I came up here he followed me and I thought he was the most annoying person in the world but now I-"

"Now you love him." Hakyeon interrupts Jaehwan.

"Yeah…" Jaehwan sighs. "I miss him too… so fucking much." He pauses before continuing. "Why couldn't it have been me instead?"

"Don't say that."

"I know." Jaehwan sighs again. "I'll never forget him."

"I don't think anyone will." Hakyeon says.

When they stand up and walk towards the door, Jaehwan sighs. They walk down more stairs as everybody was walking up, leaving their interventions. Jaehwan quickly grabs his things and leves so that the instructor doesn't have a chance to talk to him. Jaehwan never wants to hear the instructor speak to him again. 

Jaehwan walks up the stairs with Hakyeon, ignoring that fact that his legs were killing him. By the time they reached the top they realized that they both didn't want to go outside in the freezing cold again.

Jaehwan turns to Hakyeon and gives him a hug like before, arms wrapped around his shoulders. " Thank you so much, for everything." Jaehwan whispers.

"Your welcome, Jaehwan."

When they let go of eachother they walk out of the building together. Hakyeon offers Jaehwan a ride and Jaehwan accepts it.

Hakyeon's car was black, just like Jaehwan's was. The inside was much cleaner though.

As they were driving Jaehwan rolls his window all the way down, not because it was hot but because he wanted to. The cold fall, almost winter, air hits his skin and makes him shiver. _This feels good._

When they pull up to Jaehwan's house Jaehwan rolls up his window. He says bye to Hakyeon as he takes his seat belt off and stands up. "Have a good night." Hakyeon says as Jaehwan shuts the door. Jaehwan watches him drive away before walking into his house.

 

 

 

Jaehwan didn't have school the next day but he still went to the interventions, a reason he didn't know why because he couldn't hang out with Hongbin after. Jaehwan takes his time walking down the stairs, regretting his decision. _Please put me in a new intervention_ , he thinks as he walks into the room.

When the insturctor sees Jaehwan walk in he quickly walks over and Jaehwan stops walking. "Since you haven't been getting much help in here, you're being moved to a new intervention in the room right across the hall."

Jaehwan rolls his eyes as he turns around and begins walking to his new intervention. _Finally. ___

__He looks into the room through the little window on the door before entering. The first thing he notices is that there is an empty chair already there when, usually, he'd have to pull up a chair. He could already tell that he was going to like this intervention way more by the way everybody greeted him, with smiles._ _

__"Ah, everybody, this is Jaehwan." His new instructor says._ _

__"Hi Jaehwan."_ _

__Jaehwan smiles as he walks over to the empty seat. Everybody intrroduced themselves when he sat down. The only familar face he saw was Taekwoom, who sat next to him._ _

__The whole meeting was basically for Jaehwan to get comfortable with everyone and when the intervetion was over, Jaehwan didn't want to leave. He leaves the room with Taekwoon and the whole time Taekwoon looked like he had to tell Jaehwan something but he never said it._ _

__When Jaehwan walks out of the intervention room he sees Hakyeon walking up the stairs and Jaehwan hurries to catch up to him. They don't say anything to each other but Hakyeon gives Jaehwan a hug before they both walk to their cars. Jaehwan sits in his car for a couple of minutes before leaving. He rubs his eyes and looks over in the passenger seat when he sees something sticking out of the glove box._ _

__He opens the glove box and sees a CD along with a peice of paper that was folded like a note. He turns the CD case over to the front and sees Hongbin's hand writing. _To Jaehwan.__ _

__Opening the case with shaking hands, Jaehwan closes his legs to catch the pictures that fall out. He turns on his car to put the CD into the disk player, expecting music to start playing but that wasn't what he heard. It was Hongbin's voice._ _

__Jaehwan bursts into tears and he has to stop the disk from playing. When he calms down he starts the disk from the beginning and turns the pictures over, holding them in a neat pile as he goes through them, listening to Hongbin talk to him._ _

__"Hey, Jaehwan. By the time you find this I'll probably be gone. I know for a fact that you're going to blame yourself for my… death… but don't. Please don't. My parents have been blaming theirselves ever since I was 13, when my heart began bothering me. You never made me sick… in a way, you made me better. Before we met I never had any fun and my parents wouldn't stop worrying about me. With you, I've had the most fun I've ever had and I'll really miss it."_ _

__"Do you remember that day back when we first met, where I asked if you would come home wth me because I didn't want to be with my mom? Hopefully you nodded your head. " Jaehwan did. "The night before she told me that she was sorry that she didn't recongnize what was wrong with me before I become 13. I walked away from her before she could finish because I didn't want her to feel sorry for me. I was perrfectly fine, back then, with the fact that I only had a couple months to live." Hongbin pauses for a while and Jaehwan thought that was it so he moves to take the CD out but then Hongbin takes a deep breath._ _

__"You wonder why I never accepted a new heart, right?" Jaehwan nods his head. "I never wanted it because I knew that if I took it I would have even a shorter time to live. The first time the docotrs tried to give me a new heart was when I was 15. I had a couple choices. Take the risk and die while they were operating on me, take the risk and then be perfect for about 2 months and the die, or not accept it at all. Either way if I took the risk, I would have never met you. I also realized that my time would have decreased from a year to about 2 months to live. I decided I would rather live with the pain for another year and I'm glad I did, because I met you. I love you, so much Jaehwan and I want you to be happy. Please, Jaehwan, never think about killing yourself. Make friends, dont worry about me because I'm alright. I love and miss you so much and... and don't forget about me. Remember, to the moon and back forever."_ _

__Jaehwan begins to cry harder at Hongbin's last sentence and he wipes his tears on his sleeve. "To t-he moon and-and back..." Jaehwan says. He didn't think he'd ever hear Hongbin repeat his words."I w-won't forget y-ou… I prom-ise." Jaehwan says through his tears as he ejects the CD, putting it and the pictures in the case. He would read the letter later._ _

__

__

__It became easier for Jaehwan to cope without Hongbin overtime. He no longer had to write at his interventions, which he liked. Jaehwan was even thinking about participating in the talks that they had. In his old intervention no one laughed or smiled and it was always silent. In his new one there was always someone laughing and it was never silent. _I'm having fun, Hongbin.__ _

__Jaehwan loooks out of the window in the living room of his house, waiting for Hakyeon to pick him up. His car wasn't working right at the moment and he asked Hakyeon to pick him up to take him to the interventions. He drew various things on the window until he saw the lights from Hakyeon's car. Jaehwan hurries out so that they wouldn't be late to the meetings._ _

__"This snow is crazy." Hakyeon says, backing out of Jaehwan's driveway._ _

__"It is. At least we'll have a white Christmas instead of a green one."_ _

__"Right."_ _

__~~~_ _

__When they turn into the parking lot they figure out quickly that there is ice everywhere by the way the car slides as they take the turn. Jaehwan almost slips as they get out of the car and Hakyeon laughs at Jaehwan's little scream. "Hey! You would have screamed too!" Jaehwan defends himself as Hakyeon walks to Jaehwan's side of the car. Hakyeon slips on the same patch of ice and throws his arms up, holding onto the car so that he doesn't fall down. They both burst into laughter and Jaehwan shows Hakyeon what his face looked like as he slipped._ _

__"Alright c'mon… were going to be late." Jaehwan says when they calm down._ _

__They both rush down the stairs and they wave to each other before walking into their interrventions. Jaehwan was completely calmed down once he took his seat and right after he sat down, the instructor walks through the door. _I should learn his name.__ _

__The start off by talking about what their plans were for the weekend and when asked, Jaehwan said that he didn't have any plans._ _

__"Alright… on a more serious note, would you like a chance to speak today Jaehwan? You've been going here for 3 weeks and you seem comfortable with all of us."_ _

__Jaehwan nods his head and he smiles from seeing everybody else smile at him as he stands up. Taekwoon even smiled. He takes a deep breath before he begins talking._ _


End file.
